Tinto Maps #9 - 5th of July 2024 - Carpathia and the Balkans

[Zeprion]

If you already have the modern name for a culture - Aromanian
Why not using Romanian as well for the other?

 

[Em Ay Ef]

Do I spy with my little eye... Via Egnatia? (That dashed line going west from Constantinople through Thessaloniki and over to the Epirote coast.)

 

[Bulletbob]

I'm an ethnic Bosniak, here is my hot take.

The devs seem to be equating krstjani to bosnians which isn't the case.

My understanding is that there are two Slavic tribes that inhabited Bosnia, those being the Serbs and the Croats, It is also my understanding that said Slavic tribes intermingled with the previous native population in the region of Bosnia to a significant extent, hense the presence of the I2a2(Illirians I guess, maybe goths??) haplogroup instead of the R1a(Slavs) which is still the majority. This might not be too relevant since we are talking about culture, but it isnt as cut and dried in terms of ethnicity.

When It comes to the stecak(tombstones unique to the region) although the majority were carved at the time by the krstjans, it wasnt unique to them, as far as I know both catholics and orthodox people created them, it seems to be a cultural phenomenon at the time. But it also only seems to have started around the time the slavs settled the area, which to me indicates that serbs/croats who settled Bosnia in particular had diverged from other serbs/croats to some extent.

Its also around the start date of the game that "bosancica", a version of the cyrillic alphabet unique to bosnia was created.Bosnians spoke a different dialect.The Kingdom of Bosnia seemed to have an interesting political system with the "stanak". And it had a unique religion, the krstjani, tho it might be a version of coptic christianity of Armenia or smtn, it was unique to the region.

I do think there is enough evidence to show a divergent Bosnian culture in its infancy, most likely derived from the Serbian culture. Perhaps mostly due to the difference in religion, but surely other reasons as well, same as could be said of montenegrins but likely even more pronouced.

Just think of the Historical narative, 100+ years later after Bosnia fell, almost all of the people who converted to islam were "Bosnian" krstjani, in other words, those who were not accepted by the western catholics nor the eastern orthodox. And now think of a hypothetical where Serbia fell to the Ottomans, but Bosnia somehow didn't, the Bosnians Serbs would surely call themselves Bosnians given enough time. I just think that the Bosnian identity had not matured enough for Serbs and Croatians living in bosnia to stick to it when the Ottomans arrived.

So little is known about this region in general, its really hard to make a verdict at all.

All this being said, I do think that Both the north east of Bosnia(On this map), and Hum/Hercegovina should be majority Serb, So the provinces of Usora and Suli, as well as Hum should be majority Serb and more dalmatians. The province of Bosnia should be bosnian and Donji Kraj should be Bosnians Serbs and Croatians. To what extent these croats/serbs/bosnians should be made krstjani I don't know but the overall majority of the state of Bosnia should be krstjani I think.

So an infant culture spreding from Vrhbosna and Zenica, the core of Bosnia, the rest is dominated by serbs and croatians, I do believe that is the closest to the truth of the matter.

I did't mean to offend any Bosniak, Serb or Croatian, it boggles the mind how we fumbled this up in the first place.

Also ethnic Bosniak here.
I think if you take the cumulative effect of the Bosnian Church, Bosancica script, and other developments by the time of 1337, it is enough for the culture to be more like in its 'adolescence'. After all, we are only a few decades away from the peak of the Bosnian kingdom in importance and influence. I would agree on making Hum majority Serb, due to the presence of early Orthodox monasteries in the area, but for Usora and Soli I disagree, could be perhaps a Serbian minority since these areas were still quite close to the hinterlands of Bosnia with strong Bosnian Church influence. There is the limitation of province sizes to consider, but given that most of the kingdom's most important towns and settlements were in/near the center of the country, I would say the population there (more likely to be distinctly Bosnian than Serbian) should dictate the culture stripes.

 

[Tokci]

I suggested that for Hungary the counties should mostly serve as a base of the province map. Now I took the map I posted and drew the borders:
View attachment 1159015

Hats off to you! The borders you've drawn feel both meaningful and historic, capturing the essence of each region. Every location is anchored by a significant town, ensuring each province has similar importance. I would love to see a location and province distribution like this in the finished game!

 

[Timoteus-SWK]

Why are the Romanians split into Transylvanians & Wallachians?

View attachment 1159042


And why there are so little of them in Transylvania? they are not the majority where even the Hungarians said they are a majority.

Essentially, this map is more pro-Hungarian than the Hungarians.

This map is a 1186 estimate from Ovidiu Drimba, a Romanian historian - light green Romanians:
View attachment 1142990

This is a 1495 Hungarian Academy of Sciences map:
View attachment 1142991

If we take the Hungarian, and overlap it with the one from the map showcases, this part of it would be Orthodox:
View attachment 1142992

Where as in the EU5 map, there's hardly any Orthodox majority in Transylvania.

That 1495 Hungarian Academy of Sciences map is really pro-Magyar too... It even made my village Hungarian, although there were never stable community of Magyars (maybe only a few families). Nor even in 19th century, when it was almost fully Slovak village. (And that I did search for my family tree in old church records, so I know who lived there!)

 

[Zeprion]

That 1495 Hungarian Academy of Sciences map is really pro-Magyar too... It even made my village Hungarian, although there were never stable community of Magyars (maybe only a few families). Nor even in 19th century, when it was almost fully Slovak village. (And that I did search for my family tree in old church records, so I know who lived there!)

I know right?

I made a petition:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/tinto-map-9-petition-to-rename-transylvanians-wallachians-into-romanians-use-the-hungarian-map-of-the-academy-of-sciences-at-the-very-least.1693992/

Yes the 1495 Hungarian Academy of Sciences map is really pro-Magyar too... but is less pro-Magyar than what the devs made. The irony.

 

[Zeprion]

In the last Tinto Maps, Pavía said the following:

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.
Meaning this is not the final version but a placeholder:
View attachment 1142982

Unfortunately, Paradox has a history of inaccuracy when it comes to the Carpathian region and Romanians specifically. We understand that Romania is not the most popular subject in western history, to put it mildly. Most westerners are interested in England, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Russia, Ottomans and maybe Hungary and Poland at best. But we would like to play as historically accurate Romanians:
- In CK2 Wallachia and Moldavia's rivers and regions were completely wrong to the point where it looked like a parody of a map.
- The Vlachs (Wallachians and Moldavians) were listed as slavic despite not being so.
- Moldavia didn't even exist as a formable kingdom despite other 100% made up formable kingdoms existing in CK2.
- Only the geographic regions being wrong were updated in one of the last patches.
- It took CK3 to add Moldavia, but the Vlachs were still south slavic.
- Only after a few updates they finally changed the Vlachs from South Slavic to their own cultural group.
- EU4 for example doesn't have Pokuttia as part of Moldavia despite Moldavia owning Pokuttia in 1444.
- If you look at EU4's map, Suceava is much lower than where it should be. It's basically in Neamt and where Suceava should be is Halicz. This is not even history just geography.

So there is a precedent. I aim to make this topic to correct such things. Not to mention when such topics are made about the Romanians, some forum users call it "ethno-nationalist posting". Perhaps if this part of the world would get as much attention as Western Europe does, ethno-nationalist posting wouldn't be a thing. But the devs said they are really looking forward to make EU5 as historically accurate as possible, so the future looks promising.

Content:
- 1) Introductory Videos
- 2) Is it historically accurate to call their culture "Romanian" in 1337?
- 3) Issue with Transylvanian and Wallachian as different cultures on the placeholder map
- 4) Transylvania Intro.
- 5) Issue with Romanian lack of presence in Transylvania and Maramures
- 6) Issue with lack of Transylvanian Autonomy/Voivodship within Hungary
- 7) Issue with the existence Moldova in 1337 (founded at the earliest in 1345)
- 8) Wallachia and the Bessarabia Region in 1337.
- 9) Extra sources.

1) Introductory Videos

First I would like to post some Youtube videos about the history of the Romanians from a Welshman who studied the History of Cultures at Cambridge regarding the foundation of Wallachia, foundation of Moldavia and Romanians/Vlachs in general:

2) Is it historically accurate to call their culture "Romanian" in 1337?

Yes. In the same way that Greeks don't call themselves “Greek”. Instead Greeks refer to themselves as Hellenes. The Romanians never called themselves "Vlach". Instead the Vlachs referred to themselves as "Romanians".

The Romanians is not a modern term, it’s an endonym. The Romanians have always called themselves Romanians since they were first mentioned. And Wallachia was called in romanian “Tara Romaneasca” meaning “The Romanian Land”.

Wallachians/Vlachs is an exonym. They were called as such by other people, but that’s not what they called themselves. It comes from a proto-Germanic word that means “stranger” and was generally used for romance-speakers. The Hungarians used to call the Italians olasz, and the Slovenians used to call the Italians Lahi, both having the same root as Vlachs.

So Romanians is not a modern term. Other nations also started to user the term Romanian to refer to Romanians since the little union of 1859, but it’s not like Romanians suddenly started to call themselves Romanians in 1859.

- Historiograph Johann Lebel attests in 1542 that "Common Romanians call themselves "Romuini".
- The Polish Humanist Stanislaus Orichovius notes as late as 1554 that "these left behind Dacians in their own language are called Romini, after the Romans, and Walachi in Polish, after the Italians"
- Another humanist, who took up residence in Transylvania, the Dalmatian Antonius Verantio, who later would become cardinal and viceroy of Habsburg Hungary, also states in 1570 that "the Wallachians call themselves Romans" and provides an example: "When they ask somebody whether they can speak Wallachian, they say: do you speak Roman? and [when they ask] whether one is Wallachian they say: are you Roman?".
- Jesuit Theology professor Martinus Szent-Ivany cites in 1699 Romanian expressions: "Sie noi sentem Rumeni" (modern standard Romanian "Și noi suntem români") and "Noi sentem di sange Rumena" (in modern standard Romanian "Noi suntem de sânge român".
- The geographer Anton Friedrich Busching writes in 1754 that "the Wallachians, who are remnant and progeny of the old Roman colonies thus call themselves Romanians, which means Romans".
- The Hungarian writer Andras Dugonics in 1801 states: "But those Romans who remained in Dacia mixed their Roman language with the language of the Sarmatians [of the Slavs] and that of the Dacians. Thus a special language was formed, the Wallachian language (oláh nyelv), which is nothing else but a mixture of the Latin language with the Slavic and Dacian language (dákus), and they themselves are today called the Romans (rómaiak), ie rumun".
- The English author John Paget, in 1839, in his book, "Hungary and Transylvania" writes: "the Wallack of the present day calls himself "Rumunyi" and retains a traditional pride of ancestry, in spite of his present degradation".

LATER EDIT: By the end of EU5's timeline, the Vlachs will begin to be called Romanians by others as well. Thus, using the "Vlach" exonym late game would be wrong. In the 14th you can make the argument that Romanians were called Romanians by the Romanians so that's the justification for the naming, using the endonym, but by the late 18th century the Romanians weren't called Vlachs by the non-Romanians for the most part.

- By the 16th century, the term "Romanian" started to appear in non-Romanian documents. A notable early use was in the writings of the humanist scholar Nicolaus Olahus (1493–1568), who referred to the inhabitants of the Carpathian-Danubian-Pontic space as "Romanians".
- By the 17th century the identification as "Romanians" became more widespread.
- By the 18th century the term "Romanian" was further popularized through literature, historical writings, and the influence of the Enlightenment. During the Enlightenment scholars started to note the Roman roots of the Vlachs and began to more consistently refer to them as "Romanians" in their works.
- By the 19th century, as Romanian national identity strengthened and gained international recognition, the term "Romanian" almost completely replaced "Vlachs" in the vocabulary of outsiders. This shift was influenced over the centuries by diplomatic interactions, scholarly works, and the broader movements of nationalism sweeping through Europe at the time.

Calling them Romanians would also help them separate from the Aromanians south of the Danube, which were a related but different culture. (more on that later)

Given that the Aromanians are confirmed in the game (thank you @CocoBZ )
View attachment 1144832
It would make less sense now to have the Romanians called Vlachs.

As both the Romanians and the Aromanians were called Vlachs, it was a common exonym.

It would be rather inconsistent to use the endonym for one culture, Aromanian, and the exonym for another similar culture, Vlachs. Especially when you consider that they were both called Vlachs.

At the same time, using the exonym Vlachs for both would be equally confusing given that both of them were Vlachs and you as the player have no way to differentiate them.

The simplest and most eloquent would be simply using the endonym for both, Romanian and Aromanian.

3) Issue with Transylvanian and Wallachian as different cultures on the placeholder map:

Looking at the map, I can see there is a "Transylvanian" culture in Transylvania (likely Romanians) and a "Wallachian" culture in Moldavia (likely also Romanians).

I find it a little weird that they separated Wallachian & Transylvanian cultures like that.

I don't think the Romanians from Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania were different enough to call for a different culture, they could have simply been all of them Vlachs/Romanians just like in CK3.

However, if they decided to go the separation route, it's strange that they decided to make Moldavia with Wallachian culture. And Transylvania with Transylvanian culture. I assume Wallachia doesn't have a Moldavian culture but also Wallachian.

As for Maramures, according to the map it seems to be populated by the Rusyn people. This is the history of Maramures in that period:
View attachment 1142986

View attachment 1142984

For context, Balc and Drag were Romanians.

How could it be populated by Rusyn people in 1337, but in 1343 have a Romanian Voivodeship established there?

And how could Moldavia have a different "Wallachian" culture when the people who founded Moldavia were Vlachs from Transylvania?

View attachment 1142985

I find it strange to have mostly Rusyn and Hungarian culture in a region said to be populated and ruled by Vlachs/Romanians at the time.

As far as I can read about the Rusyn, it seems they only started settling in Maramures in the 15th century. Thus I do not understand their presence on the map at this time.

4) Transylvania Intro:

This is an introduction to give context to the 4th point.

There were 4 main ethnicities in Transylvania: Romanians, Hungarians, Saxons and Szekely.
The Romanians were Orthodox and the Hungarians, Saxons and Szekely were Catholic.
The only disagreements are about population sizes.

View attachment 1142994

View attachment 1142995

View attachment 1142996

View attachment 1142997

5) Issue with lack of Romanian presence in Transylvania and Maramures:

While I touched a bit on point 3 about Maramures. I believe overall from what we can see on the map of Transylvania, the map is way too biased.

There is a debate. Because there is barely any data available and that leaves ample room for various theories and speculations.
- Romanian historians claiming continuous Romanian majority in Transylvania and initially having a Romanian elite (nobility) with them gradually losing status and being treated as second class citizens by the Hungarians culminated with the Union of the Three Nations in 1438, with over the ages the numbers of Romanians decreasing and of Hungarians & Germans increasing but them never reaching a majority.
- Hungarian historians claiming the settlement of Romanians in Transylvania from Wallachia and Moldavia.... between the 9th and in the 13th century depending on the Hungarian historian (this last part will be important) with the Romanians only becoming a majority either after the Battle of Mohacs or 1750 depending on the Hungarian historian.

However, the last part is key, the game starts in 1337.

Meaning even if we ignore the whole debate even according to the Hungarian historians, the Romanians should have already arrived by now.

According to Hungarians, by 1337 the Romanians were already there, in what numbers when compared to Hungarians is still debated, but they were still already in Banat, Crisana, Southern Transylvania and Maramures. While the Hungarians were in the other parts of Transylvania.

For example:

A history of Transylvania : Pascu, Ștefan : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

xxiv, 317 pages : 24 cm

archive.org

View attachment 1142988View attachment 1142989
Pages 66 and 68.

This map is a 1186 estimate from Ovidiu Drimba, a Romanian historian - light green Romanians:
View attachment 1142990

This is a 1495 Hungarian Academy of Sciences map:
View attachment 1142991

If we take the map from above for example, and overlap it with the one from the map showcases, this part of it would be Orthodox:
View attachment 1142992

There is a big contrast between the Romanian version and the Hungarian version looking at the maps.

However, both seem to agree on Crisana, Banat and South Transylvania having a Romanian majority. Those regions are consistent.

As for Maramures, there is strong documentation of Romanians by 1337. Also for Romanians in Carta, Turda, Crisana, Banat, etc.

6) Issue with lack of Transylvanian Autonomy/Voivodship within Hungary:

Transylvania should be a vassal state of Hungary in 1337 because it was the biggest autonomous region, ruled by voievodes, which are de facto rulers, with voievodes being of higher status and having more freedom than a ban, such as the Ban of Croatia, and Croatia is a vassal state in the maps.

7) Issue with the existence Moldova in 1337 (founded at the earliest in 1345):

Moldova did not exist in 1337. The only thing that existed in 1337 that would later become Moldova is the Principality of Baia.

While territories of what would later become the principality of Moldova were populated by Romanians and had their own local aristocracies, they were under Tatar influence and there was no unified political entity. Moldova was founded in 1345 at the earliest (maybe 1352, maybe 1359, there is no consensus on the year due to scarce documentation, but it very likely didn't precede the military campaign carried out by Hungary east of the Carpathians in 1345-1347), when the king of Hungary established a defensive march under the rule of Dragoș. This early state only covered the north-western side of the region, where the eponymous Moldova river was located, and only after Bogdan's forceful occupation of the throne in the 1360s would Moldova start expanding eastwards towards the Dniester and southwards towards the sea, a process which would take a good number of decades. Either way, the main point to be made is that Moldova shouldn't exist on the map at the start of the game.

View attachment 1143002
The most accurate thing we could do is to have these Romanian vassal states under the Blue Horde (or the Golden Horde is if the devs decide not to split the Golden Horde into the Blue & White Hordes). With Maramures & Baia ruled by a Romanians but vassals of Hungary.

Soon after (in 10-20 years), what was said in the introductory video about Moldova would happen, so there should likely be an event for that. As I don't think the founding of Moldavia, unification of all these regions + Cetatea Alba & independence from Hungary would happen by normal AI EU5 play.

8) Wallachia and the Bessarabia Region in 1337:

You can see in the south that Wallachia owns a region that would later be part of Moldova, this is Bassarabia. Also known as Budjak. Taken by Wallachia sometimes in the 13th century, date is debated. Could be 1337, could be later than 1337.

View attachment 1143006

View attachment 1143007
View attachment 1143008
View attachment 1143014

9) Extra Sources:

Should you wish to go more in-depth:

https://ams.ceu.edu/2003/Coman.pdf

https://censusmosaic.demog.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/downloads/publications/mosaicWP/mosaic-wp-2013-001.pdf

https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/806217/coman_marian.pdf

https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/72883008/631a11f891b5215f91f4efe0f1bd81e56aa4-libre.pdf?1634458973=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DVlachs_and_Slavs_in_the_Middle_Ages_and.pdf&Expires=1715786525&Signature=KdnzOGVmLtoAqO-MBuWJU1PYBKWF~ryu~MNLG1yl1gElr9N8FXBuwdRDL~Ova-aKLW64o5rrdxMoPt07~-j2fQ~d2fjBrRJHJjOuSvAOOLq85RxBqIOs82F-0fsyfYTkOLvNi~FJt-t1hDTaPb3X6lU2DEyHccB-8Xk9mfHHfNCIWCcsRfNLb-xfshErdbEsCNvftEY-zn2J2keAHAHgPKvWoL0JeEUgnEkUTG7G6mrfwtmYuwhe2IKM~3G0W88QH3dzFnJbTlrOZaVvSSAgs6dVu-s-ty8pFO~MKSs3I7htmX4fthLFUUPqWNUgCvbLk8DYaFnW2lnwFygEIbGdjg__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA

East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 1000-1500

Although the Middle Ages saw brilliant achievements in the diverse nations of East Central Europe, this period has been almost totally neglected in Western historical scholarship. East Central Europe in the Middle Ages provides a much-needed overview of the history of the region from the time...

books.google.ro

https://www.jstor.org/stable/4211824

CEEOL - Article Detail

www.ceeol.com

https://www.jstor.org/stable/44172681

https://www.jstor.org/stable/44170903

CEEOL - Article Detail

www.ceeol.com

Wallachian Colonization and Traces of the Vlachs (Romanians) in Medieval Slovakia

Abstract. The study gives insight into the process of the Wallachian colonization in the territory of medieval Slovakia. This movement was part of a greater settlement process that began at the end of the twelfth century in south-eastern parts of the Carpathian arch and ended in the sixteenth...

scholarlypublishingcollective.org

There is also this Youtube channel:

Corpus Draculianum

The first complete collection of all documents from and about the historical Dracula. Educational videos about Dracula's times, Wallachia, and 15th-century South-Eastern Europe

www.youtube.com

Which quote: "This is the official channel of the international research project CORPUS DRACULIANUM, the main authority in the study of the life and times of the Wallachian voivode Vlad III the Impaler Drăculea (1431-1476). This channel provides exclusively scientific researched and referenced facts packaged in a format easy to absorb by the general public and history buffs: no vampires, no Balkan stereotypes, no commercial non-facts, only source-based history! We are professional historians from universities and scientific institutes in Germany and Romania. We spent more than a decade finding hundreds of medieval documents and chronicles on Vlad Drăculea in many archives and libraries.We are sharing our knowledge and the latest key findings, which help us look beyond the myths and legends of Drăculea."

Book of knowledge of all the kingdoms, lands, and lordships that are in the world, and the arms and devices of each land and lordship, or of the kings and lords who possess them : Markham, Clements R. (Clements Robert), Sir, 1830-1916 : Free Download

31

archive.org

Transylvania, a short history : LaÌzaÌr, IstvaÌn, 1933- : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

274 p. ; 23 cm

archive.org

A journey into the past of Transylvania : MacKenzie, Andrew, 1911- : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

192 unnumbered pages : 22 cm

archive.org

A history of Transylvania : Pascu, Ștefan : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

xxiv, 317 pages : 24 cm

archive.org

Maps on the Web - Home

mapsontheweb.zoom-maps.com

Romania: A Brief Overview

mappingeasterneurope.princeton.edu

Hungary: From Antiquity to 1526 - EuroDocs

eudocs.lib.byu.edu

Transylvania | Location, Population, Map, & History | Britannica

Transylvania, historic eastern European region, now in Romania.

www.britannica.com

Transylvania in the Second Half of the Thirteenth Century

In Transylvania in the Second Half of the Thirteenth Century Tudor Salagean describes the deep transformations of a country that was the scene of a fierce resistance against the great Mongol invasion of 1241-1242. In the second half of the thirteenth century, with the rise of the provincial...

books.google.md

https://dspace.bcucluj.ro/bitstream/123456789/195261/1/Pop-Ioan-Aurel_Testimonies-on-the-Ethno-Confessional-Structure.pdf

 

[Linbot#6018]

The fact that the Principality of Transylvania is not a native Transylvanian state in origin, and certainly not the result of Transylvania being released from Hungary, is reflected in the fact that in the early part of its history none of its leaders were native Transylvanians (by which I mean Hungarians whose families were from Transylvania, as for Romanians there were ever fewer of those by which I mean none), the early Principality was controlled by people who had immigrated from Hungary proper during the Ottoman conquest.

Actually speaking of this, there is no reason as far I can tell for Romanian Transylvanians to be a different culture from Romanians in Wallachia and Moldova. I simply have no idea what kind of historical reality or process this is supposed to reflect.

If you are able te get better names for the Baltic and Silesian Germans, we might have a deal.

The Germans in Transylvania should be called "Transylvanian Saxons" as this is the name everybody uses for them. Calling them "Transylvanians" (but in German) is making it more complicated and exoticist than it needs to be.

 

[Prot3ktor]

I think they're just going for as granular as possible. They split the French cultures into like 10+ and they split Czech into Bohemian and Moravian, which to me, as a Czech, also looks jarring and makes no sense. The description says they divided them based on dialects.

moravian/czechs were much more different than today in 14th century, the split very much so makes sense in that case

 

[Zeprion]

Actually speaking of this, there is no reason as far I can tell for Romanian Transylvanians to be a different culture from Romanians in Wallachia and Moldova. I simply have no idea what kind of historical reality or process this is supposed to reflect.

Well my friend, I called this out 1 month ago.

Helping the Devs with the Carpathian Region (Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania)

In the last Tinto Maps, Pavía said the following: 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. Meaning this is not the final version but a...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

And I began with:

Unfortunately, Paradox has a history of inaccuracy when it comes to the Carpathian region and Romanians specifically. We understand that Romania is not the most popular subject in western history, to put it mildly. Most westerners are interested in England, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Russia, Ottomans and maybe Hungary and Poland at best. But we would like to play as historically accurate Romanians:
- In CK2 Wallachia and Moldavia's rivers and regions were completely wrong to the point where it looked like a parody of a map.
- The Vlachs (Wallachians and Moldavians) were listed as slavic despite not being so.
- Moldavia didn't even exist as a formable kingdom despite other 100% made up formable kingdoms existing in CK2.
- Only the geographic regions being wrong were updated in one of the last patches.
- It took CK3 to add Moldavia, but the Vlachs were still south slavic.
- Only after a few updates they finally changed the Vlachs from South Slavic to their own cultural group.
- EU4 for example doesn't have Pokuttia as part of Moldavia despite Moldavia owning Pokuttia in 1444.
- If you look at EU4's map, Suceava is much lower than where it should be. It's basically in Neamt and where Suceava should be is Halicz. This is not even history just geography.

Looks like the trend continues.

Because f**k Romania, they are too eastern to care about them.

 

[CorwinusJ]

Few notes on some stuff I'm familiar with in Croatia

• Varaždin should probably be hills and not flatlands
• Zagreb should be flatlands
• Samobor should be split off from Zagreb- it should be hills and have Copper as a resource (my source(maybe not the best but))
• The Historic City of Rijeka isn't inside the location of Rjeka(???) that should be fixed
  • by taking a bite of Crkvenica, it should then be hills instead of flatland
  • Rename Crkvenica to Rijeka and Rijeka to Opatija
  • Split of Rijeka from Crkvenica and rename Rijeka to Opatija
• Zadar should be producing Salt to reflect the historic Nin Saltworks

also, why is Krk producing Salt (I might just not be familiar with Saltworks there)

It should not be Krk that produces Salt, but the Pag peninsula, that is where the saltworks were (and they were quite important to the Hungarian treasury to the point they specifically formed a new salt-oriented organization for its taxing). If Pag is owned by Zadar at the start of the game (as it seems to be) then Zadar should produce Salt instead of Fish, then give Fish to Krk. Googling a bit about "Paške solane"(Pag saltworks) should give enough info to devs.

The location of Pelješac should also produce Salt as that's where "Stonske solane"(Ston saltworks) are located.

 

[hightowel]

It's better to keep Krstjani separate from Bogomilism. It is an old (and debunked) hypothesis that the Bosnian Church was Bogomilist or Bogomilist-adjacent. There is hardly any written record about their practices, and what exists is not that similar to Bogomilism. There was a different religious hierarchy and the practices were informal and probably differed somewhat from region to region of Bosnia. See Noel Malcolm's book on Bosnia if you are interested in exactly why the religion is different from Bogomilism.

I agree with you, though I wouldn't say that there is no overlap whatsoever. On the other hand, I am concerned with the performance cost of adding such a small religion and that it sets a precedent for people asking for every other tiny religion, if there is no performance cost then I would love for Krstjani to be separate from Bogumils.

 

[William the Merry]

If you already have the modern name for a culture - Aromanian
Why not using Romanian as well for the other?

Aromanian clearly denotes what the culture is a reference to, whereas if we use contemporary they might all be lumped together. Arpitan is modern but also used for ease of convinence

 

[Futski]

1. We think that this makes for a bit better cultural divide (and, yes, in that case, it would probably be better to have Moldavian differentiated over time). In any case, we're open to feedback, and reviewing this specific topic.

But in that case you should make Moldavian become differentiated from the current Transylvanian Romanian culture instead of Wallachian? Given that the principality was founded by Romanian nobles from Maramures, an area that's currently 'Transylvanian' on your map?

Either that, or you unify the Romanian cultures.

 

[Zeprion]

Aromanian clearly denotes what the culture is a reference to, whereas if we use contemporary they might all be lumped together. Arpitan is modern but also used for ease of convinence

How come Aromanian is clearly a reference to Aromanian.
But Romanian would be lumped together with what? the Italians?

 

[Makkasag]

And why there are so little of them in Transylvania?

The game starts in 1337. We are 3 years after voivode Bogdan's nine month long migration that was of such scale that the King needed Hungary's highest dignitaries, the archbishop of Kalocsa, to organize the settlement, but we are decades before the black death and the invention of Twin villages.

 

[Zeprion]

1. We think that this makes for a bit better cultural divide (and, yes, in that case, it would probably be better to have Moldavian differentiated over time). In any case, we're open to feedback, and reviewing this specific topic.
2. We're aware, but it's a bit tricky; there's a group of people which are already in contact with @SulphurAeron (shot!), to help us portray the Hungarian wetlands on the best possible way.

Greeks in Thrace and Anatolia were more different than Romanians in Transylvania and Wallachia.

But I see you didn't split the Greeks.

Not that you should, just find it an unfair treatment.

Yes, the Transylvanian Romanians came into contant with the Hungarians, but they already had an established culture by then. As proven by the fact that both Transylvanian and Moldavian and Wallachian Romanians followed the Ius Valachicum.

At that time, you couldn't tell a Transylvanian Romanian from a Wallachian or Moldavian Romanian. If we are talking about 1800, yes, you could tell them apart, if you had in-depth knowledge, but there are subtle differences. There the Hungarian / Ottoman / Russian influences really show. Their popular costumes were slightly different, and accents different, and some borrowed words diffrent, but this is 1800s not 1300s.

So I have no idea why you decided to go with that. When nothing says that was the case.

In what way would having 2 different cultures Transylvanian/Wallachian make the game more interesting to worth sacrificing historical accuracy?

To say nothing of this:

This map is a 1186 estimate from Ovidiu Drimba, a Romanian historian - light green Romanians:

This is a 1495 Hungarian Academy of Sciences map:

Obviously, we can see differences. But if believe the Hungarian historians and we take the Hungarian map as a reference. It should still have more Romanians than it has in the EU5 map.

I think there is a serious issue when the EU5 team is more pro-Hungarian than Hungarian historian.

It's like Romanian historians say the color of a car is light grey, Hungarian historians say the color of a car is dark grey, and EU5 decides to make the car black.

Both Hungarian and Romanian historians seem to agree on Crisana, Banat and South Transylvania having a Romanian majority. Those regions are consistent. But not the EU5 team.

As for Maramures, there is strong documentation of Romanians by 1337. But where are they?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After so many Paradox games where the Romanians were misrepresented, I made a topic in hopes of fixing that, going into the finer details:

Helping the Devs with the Carpathian Region (Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania)

In the last Tinto Maps, Pavía said the following: 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. Meaning this is not the final version but a...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

But heck, not even the basics were even considered, let alone the finer details.

The sad thing is, I began the topic with:

Unfortunately, Paradox has a history of inaccuracy when it comes to the Carpathian region and Romanians specifically. We understand that Romania is not the most popular subject in western history, to put it mildly. Most westerners are interested in England, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Russia, Ottomans and maybe Hungary and Poland at best. But we would like to play as historically accurate Romanians:
- In CK2 Wallachia and Moldavia's rivers and regions were completely wrong to the point where it looked like a parody of a map.
- The Vlachs (Wallachians and Moldavians) were listed as slavic despite not being so.
- Moldavia didn't even exist as a formable kingdom despite other 100% made up formable kingdoms existing in CK2.
- Only the geographic regions being wrong were updated in one of the last patches.
- It took CK3 to add Moldavia, but the Vlachs were still south slavic.
- Only after a few updates they finally changed the Vlachs from South Slavic to their own cultural group.
- EU4 for example doesn't have Pokuttia as part of Moldavia despite Moldavia owning Pokuttia in 1444.
- If you look at EU4's map, Suceava is much lower than where it should be. It's basically in Neamt and where Suceava should be is Halicz. This is not even history just geography.

Looks like the trend continues.

Because f**k Romania, they are too eastern to care about an accurate representation of them.

 

[Bulletbob]

I agree with you, though I wouldn't say that there is no overlap whatsoever. On the other hand, I am concerned with the performance cost of adding such a small religion and that it sets a precedent for people asking for every other tiny religion, if there is no performance cost then I would love for Krstjani to be separate from Bogumils.

I can see the performance concern, but Krstjani is still fairly large on these maps compared to Bogomilist and Paulician (only the stripes in Thrace), plus they have Krstjani in CK3 anyway. Given their stated focus is on being as historically accurate as possible, I think it is up to the community to present the best case for each religion, and then let them decide what is possible to include given performance limitations.

 

[Prot3ktor]

I wish they went more with the Imperator graphics lookalike, it looked better than any other pdx game. I know it's work in progress and changes all the time, but something about the overall design still looks uncanny to me compared to like EU4, for example.

 

[buffon1313]

I also took an in-depth look at Bulgaria's locations, and I like what I see. Even if quite a few locations are fortresses/castles. I have some differences with your take, though:
- It seems the Bulgarians also called Stipon just that; Stipon. Until the Ottomans destroyed and rebuilt it.
- I also don't think Razgrad should be replaced by something else, the location adds some strategic depth. There's no real good alternative for it in the vicinity, and we've seen other smaller towns already.
- Targovishte is indeed a bit anachronostic, but I'm not necessarily against it. There was a settlement/castle there, and the Ottomans expanded upon it halfway through Project Caesar's timeline.
- Preslav was pretty much razed and abandoned by the end of the 13th century, its citizens moving to a village nearby.
- What's your opinion on Kozelj (around the Vidin-region)? I think it should be replaced by Zajecar (mentioned in the early 15th century).

I agree about most of the things. My notes:
- The castle at Targoviste is Kosovo (Misionis). It's not Targoviste Targoviste was a trade station initially during Ottoman rule. Then a settlement was created.
- Preslav was alive and well in the 14th century, ruined by the Ottomans.