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Tinto Maps #7 - 21st of June 2024 - Anatolia

Hello everyone, and welcome to the seventh edition of Tinto Maps! I am once again asking for your support back to the duty of showing a new region of the map of the super secret Project Caesar, which this week is Anatolia!

Countries:
Countries.jpg

A beautifully divided Anatolia! The disintegration of the Sultanate of Rûm in the 13th century, caused by the Mongol invasion, led to multiple Turkish Beyliks grabbing power over their area. Probably the strongest in 1337 is the Ottoman one, founded by the Turkoman leader Osman Ghazi, but there are other strong contenders such as the Eretnids, the Germiyanids, or the Karamanids, which will be fighting for hegemony over the region. You might also notice that the Byzantine Empire//Eastern Roman Empire//Basileía Rhōmaíōn//[insert here your favorite naming option] still holds a few positions in Anatolia, the most notable being the city of Philadelphia. Apart from them, other interesting countries in the region are the Despotate of Trebizond, held by the Komnenoi, the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, and, of course, The-country-known-in-another-IP-as-Hisn-Kayfa, the Ayyubid remnant in al-Jazira. And you might also notice some Genoese outposts, making them important players as well.

Dynasties:
Dynasties.png

The dynastic map is pretty straightforward, as a different dynasty rules each Beylik. We have fixed the issue with the random dynasty names, so no more weird 'the XXXX of XXXX' dynastic names anymore. To spice things up, we could maybe start a Byzantine discussion: Palaiologos, or Komnenos?

Locations:
Locations.jpg

As usual, please consider that dynamic location naming is not yet a thing in this region, and therefore the inconsistencies in the language used. As an additional note of caution, please don’t use the Aegean Islands as a reference or benchmark for comparison, as a review of them is something that we’ve got on our list of ‘to do’. You may be able to see that the location density in the region is gradual, from denser coastal regions to bigger inland ones.

Provinces:
Provinces.png

We have changed the coloring of the provinces, making them more different, and easier to understand, though. Apart from that, suggestions in this matter are welcomed, as usual.

Terrain:
Climate.jpg

Topography.jpg

Vegetation.jpg

The terrain in Anatolia is quite interesting and unique, as it’s composed of very different features: the central Anatolian Plateau, with a colder climate and more sparse vegetation, is opposed to the rugged and more forested coastlines to the north and south, while only having fluvial flatlands to the west, and in Cilicia (an area that always has been a choke point between Anatolia and Syria. And to the east, the territory becomes increasingly more mountainous, as it approaches the Caucasus.

Cultures:
Cultures.jpg

Anatolia is the first region of the Middle East with cultural and religious minorities added, just in time for this Tinto Maps, so we can have endless discussions about the divide between the Greek and Turkish cultures! Hurray! Now seriously, we’ve made what we think is the most accurate division for 1337, given the scarcity of data. The stripes point to a variation of the pop percentages in each location, from let’s say 70% of Greeks in Izmit or Bursa, to 80% of Turks in Ankara or Konya. We have also added some subdivisions of these cultures, with the Pontic and Cappadocian Greeks; and the Turkomans (you might note a majority of them around Sivas and Malatya), that portray more a ‘class//social grouping’ divide than an ethnic or language divide, as these Turkoman pops are always tribesmen, while we consider the settled population as Turkish. Other than that, we have a good amount of Armenians distributed between the areas of Cilicia and Armenia; Laz people to the north; and Kurds to the east (the brownish-greenish culture). Also, please ignore the chunk of Syria that appears, as the minorities there are not yet done.

Religions:
Religions.jpg

We’re back to interesting religious divisions! We have in Anatolia Orthodox, Sunni, Miaphysite, and Nestorian pops. And if you wonder what are those pink stripes in Thrace, they are a Paulician minority.

Raw Materials:
Raw Materials.jpg

There are some interesting materials distributed all over Anatolia, such as Alum (which was a main export to Italy, usually handled by the merchant republics), Silk, Marble, or Copper. And if you’re wondering about the Spices, they were previously Saffron.

Markets:
Markets.jpg

The market centers of the region are Constantinople to the west, Trebizond to the north, and Damascus to the south. Nothing speaks against a Turkish Beylik conquering one or all of them, or creating a new market center, probably in the middle of the Anatolian Plateau, although probably it will require some infrastructure to make it fully functional.

Location and Country Population:
Pops Locations.jpg

Pops Country.jpg

And populations. Byzantium has some edge over each of the Beylikz, but not if they ally with each other, or if they ally with its Balkanic rivals… Also, have I heard about a 66K Ayyubid challenge?

That’s all for today! We’ll most likely be uploading the French feedback results by the end of next week or at the start of the following one (as next week there's an important bank holiday for this company, Midsommar St. John's Day, and some people will be on vacation a few days), and in the meantime, we'll also be reading and answering your feedback about Anatolia. And next Friday, we will be taking a look at Russia. See you then!

PS: I had a flight today that was delayed, therefore the delay on the DD until an (interesting) hour in which I'll be available for replying.
 
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Great work.

I have one question, and one suggestion:
Question - It seems to me, there's to little farmlands in all regions, Anatolia included. Am I seeing the farmland vegetation wrong, or it should be more location considered farmlands in game. What's necessary for a location to be considered farmland?

Suggestion - For gameplay purposes, even if it wasn't like that in 1337, wouldn't it be better if Uskudar location was part of Byzantion province? It would give even more importance to the province, and it would reflect historic tendency of Constantinople to spread over there.
 
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I don't think Ottomans should be able to form Roman Empire, for one they never claimed to be a successor of Roman Empire rather than the Possessor of Roman Lands and Sovereign of Roman People. These are vastly different concepts especially in the Persianate and Turco-Mongol Ottoman dynastic tradition and legitimacy.

I am very curious if Ottomans will have unique institutions to be able to convert tribal people to settled people. That would be a very interesting dynamic since a lot of political establishment and will was concerned about turning nomads into settled people even while giving nomads legal rights over grazing lands through precedence and consistency. Not entirely same but somewhat similar concept would be if Ottomans would be able to convert foreign elites into Ottoman elites. However these questions are outside the scope of the map thread I think.
 
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Also, a microscopic nitpick:

The province of Lazkiye there should probably be producing salt instead of wheat cuz of, you know, the Pamukkale
 
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You may want to rename Greek ethnicity to Romaioi as the term Greek was considered a grievous insult by those people. On the other hand, they literally used Greek as their native language. Would be interesting to see the culture shift back to the label Greek in the event of the collapse of the politea.
DId the catholics call them romans though? I doubt the Holy roman emperor referred to them as romans beside during diplomacy maybe
 
Looks Great! Will there be an option to merge Greek Pontic and Cappadocian?
And also the people of Byz didn't call themselfs "Greek" it was Rhomanoi even until the late 18th century some people still called themselfs Rhomanoi instead of Greek.
 
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DId the catholics call them romans though? I doubt the Holy roman emperor referred to them as romans beside during diplomacy maybe
Lol certainly not. The nomenclature of the game depends on their design philosophy though.
 
Regarding dynamic names, is it possible for you to create separate files for the names, instead of keeping them in the default 'Location' file? I am asking because in EU4, there are many mods that add a lot of dynamic names. However, since these names are stored in the files that define provinces, the checksum is altered, making all these mods not ironman compatible. And these changes don't affect the gameplay in any way.Because I would love to have all the location names in Polish (when I conquered it) and play the ironman at the same time.
I fully agree with you sir. But in my case I would love to also see some of the new world locations having dynamic names based on portuguese nomenclature outside the "normal" areas colonized, like Brazil.
 
Can you tell us the name at least?
'The Rise of the Turks'.

We also considered 'The Turkish Thunderdome!', but we want the flavor of the game to be historically immersive... :p
 
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It's different claiming to be the successors to Rome, than restoring the Roman Empire, as a polity with a certain set of institutions, religion, etc., at least to my eyes.
I suppose it depends on the conditions required to form Rome, but seeing as how often the Ottomans used the title (especially early on) and how good a claim they had to the title, if they can't claim it, it would seem to limit reforming Rome to just the Byzantines.

Edit. The Ottomans also invaded Italy at one point to being attempting to press their claims, and at several meetings with the HRE emperors me them as rivals to the title of Roman Emperor (including literally wearing a copy if the HRE crown mixed with the Papal hat).
 
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