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Tinto Maps #5 - 7th of June 2024 - Italy

Hello everyone, and welcome to the fifth Tinto Maps! This week we will be sharing the map of Italy.

One comment before we start: we know that you might be eager to discuss other regions that may appear partially on the DD, such as the Balkans. Let’s try to keep the conversations separated in different threads, please; every region will get its own Tinto Maps, and we will show them and gather feedback in due time, in their own DD.

With that said, let’s start!:

Countries
Countries.jpg

The situation of Italy in 1337 is quite interesting. The main power in the peninsula is the Kingdom of Naples, ruled by King Robert I, who is also ruler of Provence, and a few minor countries in Northern Italy; his efforts towards the domination of Italy also made him the leader of the Guelph faction in Italy, which backs the Pope. Speaking of him, the seat of the Curia is at Avignon, and regaining control over the Papal States and moving it back to Rome might take some time and effort. Opposite to all of them, there is the Ghibelline faction, led by the Signoria of Milan, ruled by the Visconti dynasty. They are backed by other important powers in the Italian region, such as the Superb Republic of Genoa, or the Duchy of Verona, ruled by the dynasty of della Scala. There are also neutral powers, like the Republics of Venice or Siena, although they could be attracted to join one of the factions. And we also have foreign powers that have already set a foothold in Italy, such as the Crown of Aragon, which has established a branch of its dynasty as Kings of Sicilia, while also recently conquering some lands in Sardinia.

g&gs.png

Guelphs.jpg

Ghibellines.jpg

Guelphs and Ghibellines factions! They are International Organizations part of a Situation.

Dynasties
dynasties.png


Locations
Locations.jpg

There is an interesting density in Italy, especially in the North, where there are plenty of communes - the Italian city-states. You might also notice something a bit different from previous Paradox GSGs: Venice is not an island, but the location has lands around the lagoon. We aren’t 100% sure that this will be the final design, as we have a few ideas to try to keep its special position on an island inside the lagoon while addressing the issue of it being too small to appear in the map; in this regard, we’re open about feedback and ideas on the topic.

Provinces
Provinces.jpg

Any naming suggestions about the provinces are well-received, as usual.

Terrain
Climate.jpg

Topography.jpg

Vegetation.jpg

Three usual terrain layers. Something that I want to comment on is that we’ve been following this thread about ‘Revising Flatlands and hills’, and we are trying to get a bit more granularity in the Topographical map with the help of @SulphurAeron .

Cultures
Cultures.jpg

Italy is also a region with a sharp cultural division, and also plenty of minorities; although they don’t appear on the map, there are Italki Jews, or Greek and Albanian people in the South, among others.

Religions
Religion.jpg

Another boring region, with more than 90% of the population being Catholic, with most of the religious minorities being Italkim Jews and Orthodox Greeks. We're considering implementing Waldensians, although adding more diverging Catholic heresies/confessions is a bit of a low priority for us right now. As a side note, it might catch your eye the Krstjani of Bosnia; we’ll discuss them later on, in the Tinto Maps devoted to the Balkans.

Raw Goods
Raw Goods.jpg

Italy is a rich region with plenty of interesting raw materials.

Markets
Markets.jpg

There are three market centers in Italy: Genoa, Venice, and Naples (which was a very, very rich country in 1337, the wealthiest of the region). As usual, take into account that. 1. We don't script in the setup which locations belong to each market, they're automatically assigned to each market. 2. This starting distribution is not final, and it might change, as we do tweaks to the market access calculations over time.

Population
Pops Countries.jpg

Pops Locations.png

There is around 10.5M population in the Italian region as of now. Taking into account how divided the political landscape is, Naples looks scary…

And that’s all for this week! For the next one, we will be talking about the British Isles, with @SaintDaveUK . See you!
 
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Casteddu is the “modern” name in the dialect speaken in Cagliari today, but in medieval times it was different, under Aragonese control was called Castell de Càller in catalan, and Cagliari is from the spanish version of Callari, and this is from the Latin Caralis (that could be use sa “original name”.There could be also the option to use Castellum Castri de Kallari(from which the catalan and spanish mame camera from). Also Casteddu refer to the castle , built by Pisani around 1250. During the judicial era the center of the city became the village of Santa Igia (destroyed by the Pisans in 1258). I’m from Cagliari, that’s why I know it so well ;)
For proget Cesar purpose If the choice is to use Italian name, then Cagliari is good enough, other way, i will say Caralis/Calari is perfect to rappresent the original Sardinian name (Caralis is from the late Latin form of the name, which is fitting to rapresent medieval name), and if under Aragone rule Castell de Càller would be fine.
I’m from Cagliari too!
I think it is better to just use Calari in Sardinian, Callari in Italian and Caller in Catalan, without using the word “castle”.
I mean the city was called Calari (with all its variant).

It’s a little bit strange to find other Sardinians in this forum XD
 
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Wow! Great job!
I guess it's hard to represent italian geography and to fit everything in but I hope my tips will be welcome.
  • Marble: consider Trapani with Perlato di Sicilia, one of the most commercialized marbles since XVI century, and Puglia (maybe Andria, since Trani is not on the map), whose marble was used for Caserta royal palace.
  • Population: at that time italian population ranges from 10 to 15 million with 12,5 being the plausible amount (11 according to Bellettini); around 3 million people live in cities (G. Pinto, La popolazione italiana dal Medioevo a oggi). I think Tuscany's population it's been underestimated, totalling around 2 million people (read it on the italian wiki, but cannot find the link right now).
  • I'm quite sure Cuneo was administrated by Roberto d'Anjou in 1337. It was controlled by Saluzzo until 1305 but in 1309 neapolitan nobles were in Cuneo to pledge allegiance to Roberto. It passed under Savoia in 1347-48.
  • Wine: Avellino would be a nice location for it (Aglianico di Taurasi).
  • I would change mountains in Campagna with flatlands, representing Piana del Sele, which separates hills in Salerno from Alburni mountains in Cilento (Vallo della Lucania, Sala Consilina).
  • I would consider marshes in Terracina, which Leonardo da Vinci himself tried to reclaim (maybe you can script an event or a mission for it).
  • There's a plateau (Murge) in Altamura and Martina Franca.
  • I would represent Sila in Calabria as a plateau rather than hills.
I think that's all for now.
 
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Hi @Pavía, I would like to thank you a lot for your efforts in depicting the complexity of Italy with so much detail. I would like to help you by giving some suggestions about the North Adriatic sea area.

- Trieste: I am super excited about finally having the possibility to play with my city, even though surrounded by many enemies that threaten its independence. I appreciate, culturally speaking, to be depicted as venetian (sure better than friulian, our archenemies). Btw i would point out that in my opinion having wheat as raw good and farmlands as vegetation is not really accurate, since this area is really narrow and squeezed between the sea and the hills of Carso, that moreover were mostly barren before the reforestation program that was conducted during XIXth century: so I would suggest to change the raw good as salt or at least fish (since historically Trieste was always projected toward the sea) and the vegetation to grassland.
Talking a little bit about history, Trieste had many diplomatic and military struggles to mantain independence from external aggressors, mainly Venice (that occupied the city between 1369 and 1379) and the counts of Gorizia, ending up between 1381-1382 in asking for protection through vassalage to both the patriarch of Aquileia and the Hapsburgh (who prevailed). I would really like to see this kind of dynamic in the game (maybe some kind of event like Roman's invasion event for Moldavia in EUIV?), with obviously the possibility to reamain independent and let the Helbard of Saint Sergius, symbol of the city, rise once again up in the sky.

- Istria and Dalmatia: depicting these areas is not easy due to the mix of italian and slavic populations, but I would like to suggest to add some adjustment in the name of locations that at the start are under somekind of italian rule (Venezia, Aquileia and Gorizia) so I would use italian names like Rovigno (Rovinj), Pisino (Pazin), Pinguente (Buzet), Quarnaro islands, Zara (Zadar), Brazza/Lesina (maybe this is already named this way, I am not sure since I can't zoom that much). Pola, Spalato and Slano are okay like that. Other locations that are under croatian control but that might be involved through conquest are Fiume/Rijeka and Veglia/Krk.
I would also suggest to move the location of Trieste from Friuli to Istria province, which may be renamed "Venezia Giulia", even though it can be considered a more modern name (should appear around XIX century).

- Venezia: I think that having Venezia as a non-island location is underwhelming because this way it lose its most important protection, at the base of its own fundation (by refugees from the mainland escaping from barbaric invasions during V century). I would then divide the Venezia location in Venezia (island) and Mestre/Marghera (mainland). I think that some geographical inaccuracy due to magnification of the area can be accepted in exchange for a more realistic playstyle
 
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loving it so far, so, first of all a couple of locations suggestions

carving out on the eastern side of Apulia's coast Otranto from parts of Lecce and Gallipoli
this is because it was one of the most important cities in Salento, so much so your first name draft for Salento was "Terre d'Otranto". It is decently important in real life too as it was one of the cities more brutally sacked by the Ottomans

adding a Stresa location
The Borromeo family has been decently important for Milanese history, just to quote one example we have Saint Carlo Borromeo. So it makes sense for their territories to at least be reprhesented as a location. Also the Lago Maggiore and Val D'Ossola are culturally 2 separate places, and given the granularity of this said map, I think it should be ok to create a separate location (and they aslo have to this day quite the pretty royal palace too, with a good amount of flemish painters visiting and staying in it in the Reinassance)

changing "Lomello" into "Vigevano"
the cities are different and both important at that time. Two separate locations could be made, but for topological representation purposes keeping one location should be fine. Between the 2 Vigevano makes more sense, as it was the city that developed the most in the area
totally remaking the "Terra di Lavoro" locations into the following :

Sora (hill), Gaeta (mountain), Mignano (or Minturno or Suio) (hill), Caserta(flatland), Naples(flatland), Cassino(marsh, it's another swamp area that was reclaimed under the fascist regime ), Ceprano(flatland)

Sora should border Ceprano and Cassino; Ceprano ahould border Sora, Gaeta and Cassino; Gaeta should border Ceprano, Cassino and Mignano. Cassino should border Ceprano, Gaeta, Sora and Mignano. Mignano should border Gaeta, Cassino, Caserta and Naples
historically speaking in the "terra di lavoro"we have the duchies of Sora, Gaeta, Piedimonte and the Montecassino Abbey. The first 3 were vassals to Naples in the 1250s, the last one was a hignly autonomous almost independent territory. So, why did I propose to axe out Piedimonte? It's simple, its territories make absolutely no sense on a topographical level and having it as a single location would hamper the topological representation of the territory. The Dutchy of Piedimonte was the outskirts of Piedimonte + the Val Comino, to which it was separated by a 1300 tall mountain range. You know to what it was linked the val Comino to? Sora. So to represent this correctly you either create a separate location in which barely 10k sheep herders live and which would have a granularity similar to Andorra, or a small sacrifice has to be made in historical accuracy to have those territories with an accurate topological representation. Honestly, I'd be much more in favour for the latter.

Cassino should be made its own separate location given the Abbey acted almost like an independent bishopric in the 11 and 12 hundreds. Mignano / Minturno / Suio / Merignano, however you would prefer to call this location would serve less as a location and more to represent the chockepoint that armies had to face when going into or out of Campania from the Romans up to the Allies in WW2. Of course the idea for a Sora location is to follow its outskirts + the borders of the Val Comino. Cassino should mimic the borders of the Valle del Liri (without actually going up to the sea though) and Ceprano should be the rounding point going north between Gatea, Cassino and Sora. Also minor nitpick, but the Terra di lavoro shouldn't comprehend Naples too, but I understand why you chose to do that from a gameplay prospective.

Having said that, you can have at the start of the game either everything north of Mignano as having high autonomy, or having Cassino with high autonomy and the duchies of Sora and Gaeta as neopolitan appanages (the centralization of these territiories in the neopolitan state happened in the14th century

(also for an alternative name tag you could give the option to switch to "Partenopean kingdom / republic", as "Partenopean" was similar as a meaning as "Neopolitan". Given that it is something you said you wanted to implement for other countries i think it would be a cool touch to add it for Naples too. Maybe as a name for a Neopolitan republic pushing towards expanding into the mediterrenan instead of Italy, or something like that. It was a name more used by the common people than the elite, (since it was based on the popular myth of the syren Parthenope), so I would kinda enjoy it as a republic name

carving a Mestre location out of Venice
Venice should still be an isle, it's exactly the reason why it became so strong. The outskirts of Venice on land though shouldn't have such luxury, thus the reason I proposed a Mestre loaction

wool should be mainly produced in the Inner Appenines in Basilicata (and maybe there can be some "Transumanza" events given that historically it caused Spain and France to clash over in Italy)
Transumanaza was the process of sheep herders to move from the vallies to the mountains each summer. And of course they had to pay taxes to do that. And of course that creates quite some money and squabbles between who hss the right to get those taxes. I know it's a minor thing that could probably be a fun curiosity to put in a DLC or just a local event that pops up every 6 months, but hey! It's fun indeed and it caused a war between 2 major powers in Europe so that gotta amount to something

and yeah, this was just a small clarification on the reasons that motived my proposaals
 
And Lower Styria I would devide it into:
Ivnik owned by Walsee
Maribor owned by Habsburgs
Slovenj Gradec owned by Habsburgs
Ptuj owned by Salzburg
Celje owned by Counts of Cilli
Brežice owned by Counts of Cilli

View attachment 1145559
And for Gorizia, Trieste (Friuli) and Istria

Province of Gorizia/Goriška
Tolmin owned by Aquileia
Idrija owned by Aquileia (Here is the second biggest mine of mercury in Europe)
Gorica owned by Counts of Gorizia

part of Province of Friuli
Devin owned by Duino
Trst/Trieste owned by Trieste

Province of Istria
Koper/Capodistria owned by Venetia (Many salt flats)
Rovinj/Rovingo owned by Venetia
Pula/Pola owned by Venetia
Labin/Albona owned by Venetia
Pazin/Pisino owned by Counts of Gorizia
Buzet/Pinguente owned by Aquileia

1717841300925.png
 
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Completely unrelated to Italy (amazing map btw), the very north-most province of Bosnia should probably be flatlands since there aren't too many hills there.
Italy looks amazing. :D
 
The map looks good, thanks for the DD.
 
I really dont know how to feel about the name "San pietro in tuscia" as it is a name that, as someone who grew up there, i have never heard. If splitting that province into two new ones "roma" (rome, bracciano, sabina and tivoli) and "tuscia" (the rest) isnt feasible i think a better name would be "rome and tuscia" or simply "tuscia".
 
I really like it but I’m afraid that there are too many locations even for the scale of the game.


Unfortunately Carloforte is way too small to be in the game, even the bigger island of Sant’Antioco (called Sulci at the time) is too small.
No problem! I was only referring to the perfect map I'd like to see in a game/map simulator. :D
 
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1. Rice is attested in Italy since 1475 so the goods map has some errors

"in vercelli, the first segnal about cultivation of rice in italy is in 1200 with an order for rice coming from savoy officials.
In the same time period there is lucedio's abbey (in trino - vercelli), which was active since 1123, which declares to have 1732 hectares dedicated to rice cultivation."


source, which i can't link because of automod:
search for "accademiaitalianadellacucina"
search for in that site "gli itinerari di cultura gastronomica",
click on the rice one
 
Could you please separate Elba from Piombino? Mainly just to be able to emulate Napoleon’s exile. The island isn’t much smaller than Krk, so size wise it shouldn’t be an issue right?

Perhaps it has already been answered. I couldn’t read all replies today.

For Venice, maybe you can split the province, so one represents the mainland parts of the lagoon and the other the islands? Not perfect, but it would at least have the distinction.
 
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-So Italy is 3 markets now? why not.
but i'm very surprised to get a single province inland of Sardinia going to Naplas instead of Genoa like all the rest of the island.

- Cold arid climate? subtropical? nowadays the Po valley has a continental climate...
(this map shows it as subtropical. well , fine. but no cols arid or whataver)
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With the size of some of these locations, San Marino could definitely fit on the map. Even when most of the territory was consolidated in the 1500’s, for a place that has existed independently for so long, it warrants an inclusion. If not done out of respect, it should be done for the player fantasy.

I would advocate for Monaco and Vatican City, but yeah those are a few city blocks in size, so I understand (though if you are going to do it for Venice…).
 
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If the provinces are granular here, then making Utrecht a separate province (with some additional locations) should be possible as well.

(Idk if that had been addressed yet)
 
I'm looking at the maps again on my mobile and I've spotted a little mess in locations that don't feel to make sense (Orte extending in the province of Viterbo and Viterbo moved to basically Tuscany, see this image from Wikipedia along with Piedimonte and Caserta with weird shapes, why Piedimonte and not Capua), along with strong doubts in geography for the mountains (our Appennini mountains demoted as hills) and subtropical climate in the Po valley?

But the most audacious was the culture map, being born in Rome, from Lazio, the heart of the Latin world and Roman culture, seeing it depicted as Umbrian it's a knife to the heart.. either Roman or even way better Latin, which etymologically was the name of the Italic people who inhabited the region of Lazio and then conquered the Sabini, Volsci, Umbri, etc... (When Rome expanded), so, in my opinion, it's a way better fit!
 
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Sardinia should have some mountains, parts of the island are hard to reach to straight up inaccessible even today.

It also has a very dry climate overall, yet with plenty of water underground in most areas. Climate change had its toll, so I am not sure how this would be in the game’s timeframe.
 
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