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

[Mingmung]

Honestly I do think that confusion with the modern term Felvidék should not really mean not using it, given that this was the name they were using for the area both officially and unofficially; it is sort of like not using the Roman Empire or Prussia because some people are weird about it, kind of. The only reason I think naming it after Upper Hungary might not work is because I don't really think Lower Hungary would work, but I don't have a strong opinion on the matter of naming.
Otherwise I'm of the opinion that Transylvania, Transdanubia and the Banat should be constant with their geographical boundaries, which are well-defined historically, and I think they should be as intact as possible, while the rest can have some freedom.
I don't however think that a Duna area makes much sense; it's not really a grouping a Hungarian would use, it feels a bit arbitrary to group Pest, Komárom-Esztergom and Nógrád together, I might prefer grouping Pest with the rest of the Danube-Tisza interfluve region instead. However I have no problem with one big "Alföld" area itself, stretching from Bodrog to Bihar and Szabolcs.


It was, I also mentioned it briefly, but I do think the name sounds confusing out of context (given that it doesn't look any Lower than the Upper one)

Upper and Lower Egypt are also not in the position some people think just like Right-Bank and Left-Bank Ukraine, or Upper and Lower Austria.

Lower Hungary would be more than fine!

 

[ArVass]

Fun fact, that map even ignores the existence of székelys

The Székelys were not a separate ethnicity for most of history and some will say they still aren't.
Székelys were more like a social class than a culture, they were freemen tasked with guarding the border regions originally (not only in Transylvania but along all of the borders), so expecting them in a medieval ethnic map is a gross misunderstanding. As for it being an 11th century map, back then neither the Székely identity have formed yet, nor the system of the sedes that form the main backbone of Székely regionalism have formed or have been stabilized, so you wouldn't expect them if you knew their history

 

[Emperor Hadrian]

Hello!

I have tried to illustrate in the attached image some colour changes that I think would improve readability.

This is also a personal preference - I think that the yellow / wheat colour for Romania / Wallachia from V2 / HoI4 / CK3 fits best, unlike the more recent blue, and in the context of the Project Caesar map it would certainly distinguish us from our neighbours.

I have also tried to implement the green that I have seen suggested for the Bulgarians, light blue for the Greeks and a vibrant red for the Turks.

I hope you like my suggestion, best regards!

View attachment 1164156

I agree, I think the colours are much better suited for the region/cultures!

 

[Kimudena]

The Székelys were not a separate ethnicity for most of history and some will say they still aren't.
Székelys were more like a social class than a culture, they were freemen tasked with guarding the border regions originally (not only in Transylvania but along all of the borders), so expecting them in a medieval ethnic map is a gross misunderstanding. As for it being an 11th century map, back then neither the Székely identity have formed yet, nor the system of the sedes that form the main backbone of Székely regionalism have formed or have been stabilized, so you wouldn't expect them if you knew their history

What's the point of that argument, when i'm telling that instead of them we have trees on an ethnic map.

 

[ArVass]

What's the point of that argument, when i'm telling that instead of them we have trees on an ethnic map.

Because those were unpopulated, forested areas during that period, the overall population was very low and even they lived in the valleys. Do you perhaps happen to be a researcher, perhaps an archeologist, hogy has conducted digs and research in those areas and have perhaps some archeological evidence of human settlements and villages in those areas?

Large swaths of land were pretty much uninhabited during the middle ages. In fact, the early Kingdom of Hungary (until the early 13th century or so) kept a deliberately uninhabited "no-man's-land" called the gyepűelve, along the Carpathians, only trespassed by scouts, and perhaps some herdsmen. Székelys, as I have mentioned, were guards of the inner gyepű ("march"), basically a border guard population along these borders. By the 13th century, the gyepű system was dismantled, the Székely sedes solidified into one defined region within Transylvania, and due to increasing population more areas of the Carpathians and the untrespassable marshes in the Plains were settled, though most of the mountains (like everywhere in the world) were still uninhabited.

The reason we have uninhabited forests and "trees" on an ethnic map is because, in fact, those areas (forested mountains, marshlands, etc.) seem to have really been unpopulated, as there are no settlements (villages, towns, farmstead) found in those areas from that period in the archeological record.

And yeah if you expect Székelys (as an ethnicity) in Székelyföld in the 11th century you have clearly no idea about the history of the area

 

[DOURIOS]

After many days I have finally finished with the Montenegrin, Epirus and (mostly) Albanian regions. All in all 9 locations have been split, five border changes have been made and I also added the names of the locations (the locations that I worked on) under the respective culture that they start in 1337.



I will first start with the political map and it's changes (below are the official map from paradox and my map with the needed corrections).

The changes:

-Albania shouldn't start as a state (as they didn't exist at the time, although the Neapolitan Durres claimed themselves to be) but rather a formable nation to be able to form by the Albanian principalities of the region if they control certain locations for example (Kruje, Berat, Durres, Dukagjini and Lezhe).The Thopia principality should start in the place of Albania with some location changes, the location of Durres under Neapolitan control, Dukagjini under Serbian control and the Elbasan location under the Arianiti family who they in turn are under Byzantine suzerainty.

Thopia principality

(I also added this map of the rivers in Albania, to better understand where the borders of the principalities and locations should be)

The Arianiti principality history before 1337 and it's rough borders around Elbasan.

-The Despotate of Epirus (Who at the start date was in the process of becoming a province of Byzantium) northern border should be Avlona with the Berat and Kavaje locations instead be held by the Mazuka family who they too like the Arianiti were under nominal Byzantine control (as they styled themselves with Byzantine titles pursuing careers in the Byzantines state as well as Andronikos the third putting down a revolt in 1337 by Albanians in the area).

By late 1337 to 1338 the Despotate of Epirus was peacefully incorporated into The Byzantine Empire thanks to the efforts of Emperor Andronikos the third.

The Mazuka family's history before 1337 and it's shifting loyalties.

The failed revolt by Mazuka in 1337

-The Kingdom of Serbia should also control the locations of Dukagjini, Pogradec, Pogradec is one of the new locations that I added (I would show later don't worry) and Florina.

Source

-The kingdom of Naples at 1337 should controll the port of Durres and it's immediate areas (I have taken away half of the location of Durres as it was very big and gave it to a new location Petrele). The island of Corfu with the Bouthroton fortress should be part of Naples as well, (Bouthroton as a location should be split, as Bouthroton itself was just a fortress with a small settlement that was slowly disappearing, its location is right across Corfu and it's purpose was to warn and protect the island from invading army's)

Corfu

Bouthroton (Butrint)

This is it for the political spectrum of the region.


I would now focus on the changes in location borders and breakup of certain large locations, as you can see they are quite a few...

(The original map side by side for comparing differences).

Alright from north to south.

- The Budimlja location has changed to Brskovo as it was an already existing town in the 14th century while Budimlja wouldn't be mentioned until the 16th century

I have also split the original Budimlja location in two as I believe it is quite big, the northern part is unfortunately quite devoid of written settlements in 1337 with the exception of the Kumanica monastery (if anyone knows of a better location name please inform me). While the light green stripes are to be taken of Podgorica location and be given to Brskovo as the town is right at the border between the two so in order to be more clear cutted I assigned that area to Brskovo.


-The koman location has been split in two new locations, while the yellow stripes are to be given to the Dukagjini location in order for the border to better reflect the drin river.

-The Dibra location has been split in two, since the new location Presolengrad was in written records from when Bulgaria controlled the region in the 11th century! (thus it's Slavic name).

While the red striped area is to be taken of the Kruje location and be given to Presolengrad in order to better reflect Thopia's borders as they were between the Mat and Skhumbin rivers.

-The Kruje location too has been split with Petrele taking the southern part of the location as it was an fortified location in 1337. The orange area of stripes should be taken of Durres and given to Petrele as Durres an Angevin possession only controlled the city and immediate surroundings.

-The Durres location as I said above should give half of it's southern area to Petrele as it certainly didn't control that much south and inlands.

For reference (notice how even my reduced location is still big compared to what was actually controlled).


-The location of Berat has been split in three as there are a number of important settlements in the location area of Berat. Fier which was used for trade by the venetian merchants.

While the Gramsh location seems to have been under the Arianiti family.

-The Devol location has been split in two with the important Pogradec town being added.

-The Vlore location has been split as well with the town of Himara being added in the south.

- I have decided to split the Kelcyre location as it seems quite big for only one location, adding Konitsa which it was first mentioned in 1380 as a fortified location so quite important and it probably existed in 1337.

-And lastly the Bouthroton location which is shown to have a ridiculously big area. The Bouthroton fortress was built in order to keep the island of Corfu safe from raiders and invading army's (it's nicknamed the eyes and ears of Corfu for a reason after all).

What the Bouthroton really should be as a location.

However since it will be a very small location to add I think it will be best for Bouthroton to be included in the location of Corfu as one (the area of the light yellow stripes), for the fortress never truly fell until the end of the 18th century when french forces of Napoleon took the Corfu and the Albanians seized the opportunity and took Bouthroton (you can see how interconnected Corfu and Bouthroton were).
So instead of Bouthroton the location name should be Agioi Saranda as there was a local monastery in the area (even thought the town seems to be abandoned at the time).

So that's it then, this took quite a while to make but I think in the end it was worth it!



Ps: my thanks to @Mingmung for inspiring me to finish it sooner rather than later.

 

[Mingmung]

@DOURIOS nice suggestion, once again! I'm curious how far the devs will go with future splitting of locations in this area, but still!

I'm a bit puzzled about Dukadin, though. I didn't find anything of note on it. My suggestion dealt with it by merging it with a new Peshkopi location. Did you find anything on Dukadin?

I'm also not a fan of the current Montenegro setup (working on a post about it). It misses some future capitals, like Cetinje, the fortress of Gradina Martinic has been abandoned for a while, Podgorica is in the wrong location (it's actually slightly inside Gradina, I think) and Budua/Budva is not located within its location, at all. But should be split from Kotor. As Budua/Budva is currently in the location of the city of Bar (hence the confusion, I think).

The Kingdom of Albania was also controlled by a different Anjou, so it being a vassal/PU or something makes total sense. And I'd still keep Bouthroton as a separate location, just a bit bigger than your setup, but smaller than the current iteration.

 

[DOURIOS]

@DOURIOS nice suggestion, once again! I'm curious how far the devs will go with future splitting of locations in this area, but still!

I'm a bit puzzled about Dukadin, though. I didn't find anything of note on it. My suggestion dealt with it by merging it with a new Peshkopi location. Did you find anything on Dukadin?

I'm also not a fan of the current Montenegro setup (working on a post about it). It misses some future capitals, like Cetinje, the fortress of Gradina Martinic has been abandoned for a while, Podgorica is in the wrong location (you fixed it, too) and Budua/Budva is not located within its location, at all. But should be split from Kotor. As Budua/Budva is currently in the location of the city of Bar (hence the confusion, I think).

The Kingdom of Albania was also controlled by a different Anjou, so it being a vassal/PU or something makes total sense. And I'd still keep Bouthroton as a separate location, just a bit bigger than your setup, but smaller than the current iteration.

-Thank you And seeing that they gave 150 new locations for France alone... Well you can't blame me for being optimistic.

-Dukadin is simply the Slavic version of Dukagjini, unfortunately I haven't found anything about that location either I would take a look again and see if I can find some town or Castle in the region that existed at the time or close to it at the very least (I don't have high hopes though).

-Yeah Montenegro isn't really my area of expertise and seeing how long Albania itself took I decided not to work too much into it. I hope other people would look more into it (you seem familiar with it which is good)

-Yeah a vassal is probably more accurate


- Bouthroton either as its own location or part of Corfu I don't mind, but it must be scaled down from what it's original location was!

 

[purplephoton]

Otherwise I'm of the opinion that Transylvania, Transdanubia and the Banat should be constant with their geographical boundaries, which are well-defined historically, and I think they should be as intact as possible, while the rest can have some freedom.
I don't however think that a Duna area makes much sense; it's not really a grouping a Hungarian would use, it feels a bit arbitrary to group Pest, Komárom-Esztergom and Nógrád together, I might prefer grouping Pest with the rest of the Danube-Tisza interfluve region instead. However I have no problem with one big "Alföld" area itself, stretching from Bodrog to Bihar and Szabolcs.

The issue that arises is that a Transdanubia following the well-defined boundary will cut straight across provinces and locations. In Pest and Fejer, this is easy to address by playing around with what county goes where, but upstream it becomes an issue when the boundary goes through Komarom, while the location of Esztergom is sliced clean in half. Hence my solution to split off the offending counties, along with Nograd which is a bit too hilly for the “plain” part of “Great Plain” and also sticks in a mildly bordergory manner, into a “Duna” area centered on Pest.
With Transylvania and Banat, I haven’t looked in detail, but I seem to remember them having some sort of issue that made me go “fuck it, I’ll just follow county borders instead and approximate the grouping”.
Edit: one of the issues was with Banat’s size, where following historical boundaries would leave it with two provinces and a small fraction of a third, which is a bit too small by PDX standards - hence including all of that third province (Arad), plus an optional fourth one (Hunyad).

 

[Kimudena]

Because those were unpopulated, forested areas during that period, the overall population was very low and even they lived in the valleys. Do you perhaps happen to be a researcher, perhaps an archeologist, hogy has conducted digs and research in those areas and have perhaps some archeological evidence of human settlements and villages in those areas?

Large swaths of land were pretty much uninhabited during the middle ages. In fact, the early Kingdom of Hungary (until the early 13th century or so) kept a deliberately uninhabited "no-man's-land" called the gyepűelve, along the Carpathians, only trespassed by scouts, and perhaps some herdsmen. Székelys, as I have mentioned, were guards of the inner gyepű ("march"), basically a border guard population along these borders. By the 13th century, the gyepű system was dismantled, the Székely sedes solidified into one defined region within Transylvania, and due to increasing population more areas of the Carpathians and the untrespassable marshes in the Plains were settled, though most of the mountains (like everywhere in the world) were still uninhabited.

The reason we have uninhabited forests and "trees" on an ethnic map is because, in fact, those areas (forested mountains, marshlands, etc.) seem to have really been unpopulated, as there are no settlements (villages, towns, farmstead) found in those areas from that period in the archeological record.

View attachment 1164502

And yeah if you expect Székelys (as an ethnicity) in Székelyföld in the 11th century you have clearly no idea about the history of the area

Before making such claims you better consult Dacia, Thracia, Roman fortifications maps and burial cites of Gothic and Huns tribes...
Sarmizegetuza, dacian capital, was literally in the mountains. Dense forrests and mountains are the locations where other nationalities lived after hungarians came. The shady way of depicting them as unpopulated areas is childish. And again, székelys consider themselves different from hungarians, I live there, and I know better.

 

[ArVass]

Before making such claims you better consult Dacia, Thracia, Roman fortifications maps and burial cites of Gothic and Huns tribes...
Sarmizegetuza, dacian capital, was literally in the mountains
View attachment 1164556

From the period. Sarmizegetusa was razed a thousand years before the high middle ages. There are no such archeological finds from the middle ages lmao

 

[Kimudena]

From the period. Sarmizegetusa was razed a thousand years before the high middle ages. There are no such archeological finds from the middle ages lmao

Oh no, close eyes truth is too glowing

Sarmizegetusa · Archaeological Aerial Archive of Romania

aerialarchaeologyromania.exeter.ac.uk

 

[ArVass]

The issue that arises is that a Transdanubia following the well-defined boundary will cut straight across provinces and locations. In Pest and Fejer, this is easy to address by playing around with what county goes where, but upstream it becomes an issue when the boundary goes through Komarom, while Esztergom is sliced clean in half. Hence my solution to split off the offending counties, along with Nograd which is a bit too hilly for the “plain” part of “Great Plain” and also sticks in a mildly bordergory manner, into a “Duna” area centered on Pest.
With Transylvania and Banat, I haven’t looked in detail, but I seem to remember them having some sort of issue that made me go “fuck it, I’ll just follow county borders instead and approximate the grouping”.

I'd personally probably move Nógrád to Western Slovakia/Lower Hungary/Nitra, or maybe to Upper Hungary, mostly because of its hilly terrain, because of its local dialect being in the Palóc group, and its relatively high Slovak influence. I do feel like it belongs to the North, to be fair

 

[ArVass]

View attachment 1164559

Oh no, close eyes truth is too glowing
View attachment 1164560

View attachment 1164561
View attachment 1164562

Sarmizegetusa · Archaeological Aerial Archive of Romania

aerialarchaeologyromania.exeter.ac.uk

Yeah, check the dates. Neither of those castles were built prior to the 13th century, Deva was built after 1242, and the castle of Hațeg is from the late 13th century the earliest. Deva isn't really even a highland area, by the way, it is a small volcanic dome in the middle of a lowland valley, and isn't comparable to the forested highlands of the Carpathians or the Apuseni mountains.

This is quite literally in line with what I said earlier about highland areas starting to be permanently settled from the 13th century onward or so.

 

[petarsc]

Modern-day Montenegro suggestions:

Hi everyone, this is my first post at the forum, I hope am not late for the review, because it took me a long time to make. I am from Montenegro and I know about the history and geography as I work as a tourist guide. I'll try to summarise my suggestions for the region here.

Locations/location names:
-Brskovo is omitted. My suggestion would be splitting it from Budmilje and parts of Pljevlja (they seem lake large enough locations), otherwise Budimlje could be renamed.

Spoiler: About Brskovo

Brskovo was extremely important as a mine (famous for its silver and minting coins), but also as a trading hotspot. Traders from Ragusa and Kotor relied on Brskovo because it was only possible for them to make huge profits if they could haul goods both ways when they go inland.
The pops should have include a large amount of chatolic saxon who had their own church, town "knez" (ruler) and made up the miner community.


It is true that after the game start it would decline in real history, as noted by other posters. Citation:
"У другој половини XIV в. почиње његово опадање, а 1433. га Дубровчани у једном тексту убрајају међу напуиггена мјеста, која не привлаче трговце." (During the second half of XIV century begins its decline, and 1433. Ragusans in one text note it as one of abandoned places, that do not attract traders.)

But considering the outsized importance at the game start and the fact that the decline lasted for several decades afterwards (also that even after the Ottoman capture in 1399 and the Ragusan claims of abandonment of trade in 1433 the location was far from depopulated, even if the mines and the town relying on it were)

-Bar is omitted. As someone already mentioned, Budva is put where Bar is geographically. During this era Bar is definitely more important so renaming the location to Bar and splitting Budva from parts of Kotor and Bar would be my sugggestion, depending on the desired location density.

-Gradina dilemma.

Spoiler: About Gradina

Gradina location is dominated by two geographic features. The flatlands of Bjelopavlići (where the remains of Gradina are and where the wast majority of the population at the game start would be living.). Other one would be the slopes of Lovćen. This is where, when the Ottomans come, the Crnojević dynasty runs to and Ivan founds Cetinje in 1482. From then on this is the capital of Montenegro (most importantly during the Petrović Njegoš dynasty when Montenegro was flipping in and out of de facto independence from the Ottomans (holding an even smaller area than the location depicted, but being able to hold it most of the time thanks to mountainous terrain.). They would win de jure independence only in 1878, though)

Therefore I am torn whether to suggest the location to be flatlands, or mountains (or hills if we pull the average) and what the name of the location should be. Gradina is today not a significant archaeological site and the XIV century character of the location would be rural, therefore a better name for it would be Gornja Zeta

I think there is a great opportunity for a flavourful event - Founding of Cetinje - If the Turks capture Podgorica (old capital of Žabljak Crnojevića was inside of this location) Gornja Zeta gets an influx of pops, a monastery buliding (or equivalent) and changes the name to Cetinje. The loaction gets a modifier if captured of extra separatism or sth (i don't know the mechanics of rebellions and separatism yet)

-Soko grad shoud be renamed to Komarnica/Piva - we are unsure of the date of construction of Soko grad, first mention is from 1419. and most estimates put the founding in the second half of XIV century. This location should be rural anyways and therefore it would be better represented by the name Komarnica, possibly Piva. These are two big and important "župa"s at the time.

I think there is a great opportunity for a flavourful event - Founding of Soko grad - If the location is owned by Kristjani or Bosnian ruler, the town can be founded, changing the name of the location.

-Morača location addition - Podgorica is mistakenly marked as a mountinous province and best way to solve this is to add a location of Morača in between the two wastelands of Sinjajevina and Prokletije. Morača was an important "župa" and Nemanjićs built one of the most important monasteries there -Morača monastery. Near the monastery is the remains of a fortress Morača but very little is know about it, but it is mentioned in 15th century. It should be rural and produce livestock.

-Podgorica name should be changed to Podlužje, Žabljak or Žabljak Crnojevića - Podgorica wasn't the urban centre that it is today. There was a trading post with this name at the game start but it's importance pales in comparison with the rural agricultural flatlands surrounding it. I propose a location encompasing these 3 "župa". Podlužje is the most important one at that time and should give the name to the location.
Alternatively if you want to name it after a town Žabljak Crnojevića is starting to rise at game start and will soon become the capital.

-Kotor location expanded to the west to encompass todays Herceg Novi and it's surroundings. Kotor should definitely represent whole of the Boka bay. From the map it looks like part of the bay where Herceg Novi would later be founded in 1382 (it would merit being a separate location but the location density would be too high) is drawn to be part of Ragusa (Dračevica was part of Nemanjić Serbia and churches on prevlaka were under Kotors jurisdiction)

 

[Kimudena]

Yeah, check the dates. Neither of those castles were built prior to the 13th century, Deva was built after 1242, and the castle of Hațeg is from the late 13th century the earliest. Deva isn't really even a highland area, by the way, it is a small volcanic dome in the middle of a lowland valley, and isn't comparable to the forested highlands of the Carpathians or the Apuseni mountains.

This is quite literally in line with what I said earlier about highland areas starting to be permanently settled from the 13th century onward or so.

Not built, but reinforced already existing fortifications.

 

[Mingmung]

Modern-day Montenegro suggestions:

I'm really curious about your suggestion, but I don't see an image yet

 

[petarsc]

Modern-day Montenegro suggestions pt II:

Sorry everyone, probably my response was to long so it got flagged for spam. I had to post it like this

Raw materials:
-Silver in Budimlje/Brskovo
-Olives in Bar and maybe Budva also. These reagions produce olive oil and have been doing so from Roman times at least. In Bar there is a 2000yo olive tree and around Budva, Bar and in Valdanos there are olive grooves more than 1000yo
-If diversity of raw goods produced makes more gameplay sense then Budva could be producing fish (representing both fishing from the sea and from the lake because location on drawn on the map encompases Crmnica "župa")
-Salt in Kotor - Kotor was an important salt trading town salt for silver trade was their "bread and butter". Although Kotor was by XIV century trading more salt than it was producing (importing to meet the demand that was outpacing its production) it all started with the local production in Tivat Solila locality.
-Something other than wheat in Soko - Soko region was not known for wheat production

Spoiler: Alternatives

"Podgrađe je aktivno živjelo zahvaljujući trgovini i rudarstvu. Prema primorju su se izvozili raznovrsni proizvodi, uglavnom stoka, drvo i vosak. Takođe i metali, najvjerovatnije bakar, olovo i cink čijih ruda na ovom prostoru ima dosta. Oko rudnika su formirana rudarska naselja, karavanske stanice i trgovi. Osvajanjem Pive od strane Osmanlija 1466. godine, rudarstvo je zamrlo.
Skorijim arheološkim istraživanjima u Šćepan Polju otkriven je srednjovjekovni rudnik koji tek treba da nam otkrije tajne tadašnjeg rudarstva… "

Translates to: Surroundings of the town lived a bustling life thanks to trade and mining. Towards the seaside they exported diverse goods, mainly cattle, wood and vax. Also metals, most probably copper, lead and zink whose ores are plentiful. Around the mines there were mining settlements, caravan stations and trading squares. After the Ottoman conquest of Piva in 1466 the mining died out. Recent archeological investigations in Šćepan Polje (where Soko is situated) discovered a medieval mine that is yet to reveal the secrets of contemporary mining.

Unfortunately I don't have a better source right now. Considering that there is already a lead mine to the north and livestock to the south, lumber or copper would make sense.

-Not livestok in Podgorica. My suggestion would be wheat, but wine, cotton or fish would also be options

Topography:
-Podgorica should be flatlands.

Spoiler: Arguments

This is the biggest flatlands of the whole country it was very fertile and extremely important for agriculture of the region.
Topological map shows this without a doubt.

-Skadar lake should look different.

Spoiler: History

At the time Skadar lake used to be conisderably smaller (also it seems to be drawn to far south). It used to be called Diokletian lake or Veliko blato (big mud). It was only 4-5m deep and had a lot of marshy surroundings. Also a lot of the now underwater areas used to be big producers of cotton and wheat.

-Onogošt should definitely stay as plateau. Today it is called plateau of Nikšić and settled areas definitely have plateau surroundings.

-Soko should be mountains. Inside this location are two big canyons and second highest peak of Montenegro. The old fortress of Soko is very hard to reach with a big army exept maybe from northwest.

-Wasteland for Tara Canyon. It's the deepest canyon in Europe and remote even today. I cannot see a big army traversing it, especially in the XIV century. This would make it impossible to go directly from Soko to Pljevlja, which could be interesting from gameplay reasons too.

-Orijen mountain added as wasteland.

Spoiler: Rationale

Orijen has 6 peaks over 1800m and it's slopes descend all the way to 0m and the seaside. Kotor bay is very, very, very hard to access and this would make it at least not connected to Trebinje. Connection to Onogost shoud remain as there is an important road at the time through the passes, over Dragalj and Grahovo that Kotorans and Ragusans used for trade.

-Reduced size of the middle wasteland from the eastern side. Gornja Morača, Lipovo and Polja marked in white as it should not be a wasteland. Also on the southern side the wasteland should be expanded because it is the upper slopes of the Morača canyon 1000m deep at some points. Going along the river is possible, but crossing from one side of the canyon to the other is an ordeal.
-Added Komovi to the eastern wasteland. Prokletije wasteland should be expanded to further to the south and Komovi should be added to the western side.

Culture/Religion:
This is a can of worm I might not want to open, so I will be brief.

-More Dalmatian, more catolic in the costal towns.

Spoiler: Orthodox Serb here, please don't accuse me of propaganda. I am trying to be objective.

At this point old walled towns of Kotor, Bar and Budva were predominately catholic (Bar was an archbishopric), while the surrounding rural settlements would have a larger proportion of orthodox. Kotor should definitely be the other way around than shown on the map (Dalmatian and catholic should be a majority and Serbian orthodox should be a minority). The same case could be made for Bar and Budva, but I could see it also the other way around if we consider the rural population to outnumber the townspeople (But inside the towns the catholics should make up 80-95%, Dalmatians maybe a bit less if you want to model that the customs are starting to merge and even though the priesthood is subject to the pope they are marrying and adopting other orthodox customs).

Also throughout Zeta province there should be scattered some catholics. Helene of Anjou was ruling Zeta only decades before the game start and she is remembered for showing religious tolerance throughout the province (implying the community wasn't fully orthodox)

Also a small Serbian minority in Ragusa should be present as there are families from Kotor present there, even being adopted into nobility and the council, forcing Ragusans several times to forbid marrying from Kotor.

-Possibly more Albanian and Vlach in the north and northeast.

-Catholic Saxon pops should be present in Brskovo/Budimlje

-Too early for Bosnian and Kristijani in Soko.

 

[petarsc]

I'm really curious about your suggestion, but I don't see an image yet

Sorry, I couldn't post it. Probably a new account is more limited. I had to remove all the links and cut it in two parts, otherwise it was flagged as spam.

 

[Mingmung]

@petarsc My man, that's an awesome suggestion! I was busy with my own correction/research of Montenegro, but you did it even better. The developers might already be pretty happy with the density of the Balkans, so that's something we should keep in mind (your suggestions are still solid, though). The Italy region only got 5 more locations, for example.

Here are my general comments on Montenegro:

1: As you said so yourself, Gradina Martinic was already a ruin and not in use. The location was sparsely populated, but renaming it to Gornja Zeta would be a mistake, in my opinion. The developers aim to name locations after villages, towns, fortresses or cities, Gornja Zeta is neither of those. This may sound a bit odd, but I'd name it Cetinje already. I know that it's basically 150 years before its foundation, but some anachronisms aren't unheard of on the map. They're unavoidable, sometimes. And I doubt the developers want to create DHE's for every town that sprang up into existence during the game's timeframe.
2: Budua either gets renamed into Bar, or a new Budua location is carved out of Kotor and both Bar and Budua come into existence. That would be very nice for Venice, though. Depends on location-density, but with Lake Skadar being in the wrong location some space could be created for both of them.
3: Podgorica is located on the border between current Gradina and Podgorica, but I agree with your suggestion of renaming the location into either Podluzje or Zabljak Crnojevica (the latter has my preference) and redrawing the borders to indeed encompass all of these towns.

In short; I almost 100% agree with your suggestion, but I'd rename Gradina into Cetinje from the get-go, and Podgorica into Zabljak Crnojevica, with some rewritten borders to encompass the towns of Podgorica, Zabljak and Podluzje. Some slight anachronisms aren't odd to have in the Balkans, as long as they aren't 16th/17th/18th century towns. Your suggestions for other locations and some name-changes to the north are also very good!

Cheers!