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Tinto Maps #2 - 17th of May 2024 - Iberia

Hello everybody, and welcome to the second post of Tinto Maps! We’re really pleased about the great reception that the first one had last week, and also about the great feedback that we received. Just so you know, we have more than 70 action points from it that we will be implementing soon in the game.

Today we will be unveiling the map of Iberia in this super-secret project! So let’s start showing maps without further ado:

Countries:
Countries.jpg

The situation in 1337 shows a strong Crown of Castile under the rule of Alfonso XI, who has overcome the problems of his troublesome minority. To the east, we have the Crown of Aragon (it’s named that way, even if it currently doesn’t appear like that on the map), which is fighting for hegemony over the Mediterranean. An offspring of it is the Kingdom of Mallorca, ruled by a cadet branch of Aragon since half a century ago, that also has a couple of northern possessions centered on Perpignan and Montpellier. To the north, the Kingdom of Navarra is ruled by a French dynasty, its titular queen Jeanne, a member of the Capetian dynasty, being married to Philippe, Lord of Évreux. To the west, Portugal has a tense relationship with Castile, with a war being fought during 1336. To the south, the Nasrid dynasty holds power in Granada, backed by the Marinids of Morocco, who have a foothold in the peninsula centered around Algeciras and Ronda. And yes, Andorra is a starting country.

Locations:
Locations.jpg

Note: We are aware that there are some locations that could be added here and there, as this was one of the first maps that we created, and we weren’t completely sure about the location density we would like to have in the game. Some examples of possible locations that we’d like to add during a review would be Alicante, Tarifa, Alcobaça, Tordesillas, Monzón, or Montblanc. Also, you might notice that Zaragoza is named 'Saragossa'; this is not final, it's because we're using it as our testing location for the dynamic location naming system, as it has different names in Spanish (Zaragoza), Catalan (Saragossa), English (Saragossa), French (Saragosse), or Arabic (Saraqusṭa).

Provinces:
Provinces.jpg

Although it looks a bit like the modern provincial borders, take into account that those are based on the provincial reform of Francisco Javier de Burgos, which were also inspired by the cities/provinces that were accountable for the ‘Servicio de Millones’ during the reign of Philip II. Also, please, don't focus on the province names, the language inconsistency is because we were also using them as a testing ground.

Terrain:
Climate.jpg

Topograhpy.jpg

Vegetation.jpg

Iberia has one of the most complex terrain feature distributions in the entire world. We've also discussed this week that we're not very happy about the Vegetation distribution, which we'll be reworking, so feedback on this topic is especially very well received.

Cultures:
Cultures.jpg

Quite standard cultural distribution here, based on the different languages of Iberia (Asturleonese was still a language back in that time, although close to being opaqued by Castilian, after one century of joint ruling). The Andalusi represent not only the Muslim inhabitants of Granada and the Strait of Gibraltar but also the Mudéjar communities spread throughout much of the territory.

Religions:
Religion.jpg

The Sunni populations present here match the Andalusi pops of the previous map. Although it’s not shown in the map mode, there’s another important religious community in Iberia, the Sephardic Jews, who inhabit several cities and towns.

Raw Goods:
Raw Goods.jpg

This is also a map mode that we'll be revisiting next week, and feedback is also very welcomed. A curiosity: for the first time in a Paradox GSG, there is the Mercury resource in Almadén.

Markets:
Markets.jpg

This is the current distribution of markets, please take into account that it is based on the current gameplay status of the system and that it won’t necessarily be its final status. We tested in previous iterations having market centers in Lisbon and Burgos, but they weren’t working as we wanted; thus why we only have market centers in Sevilla and Barcelona. As the markets are dynamic, it might be possible to create new market centers, so a Portugal player might want to create a new market in Lisbon after some years (although having access to the market of Sevilla is juicy if you get enough merchant capacity on it).

Pops:
Pops.jpg


And that’s all for today! Next week we will be traveling to France! See you then!
 
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Two small mistakes I've found, first is that the Barcelona location is labeled as "Flatlands" wich is false, the area is sorrounded by the Litoral and Pre-Litoral mountain ranges, and it really isnt flat, i know this because I live here and all coastal towns go uphill after a few meters, a better terrain would be "Hills". Second is that the population of Vielha is labeled as 5,703. Now i'm not an expert on demographics of the 1337 northern pyrnees but La Vall d'Aran (the province where Vielha is) is registred as having 598 inhabitants in 1553 according to wikipedia and woudln't reach 5k till the late 1700s. The ingame number seems to be based more on the modern population of the city, wich is at its historical maximum. On the 1500s it was at 250 inhabitants or so.
 
I'm surprised on the positive. All maps show clearly that actual research was put into them and the geographical details makes the huge diversity in Iberia justice.
Here is my two cents of feedback for now:

Province map:
Additions.png
Castile seems to have a disproportional superior density compared to every other kingdom around them (i'm surprised it wasn't Aragon, as it usually is), which is a bit strange considering how much bigger it already is, as well as how sparsely populated it's hinterlands have always been.
Keeping my additions short and only strictly necessary, i would add 3 more localities to Portugal (which as usual seems to have the lowest density of the bunch):

Braga - Absolutely fundamental, city of paramount importance in the region since the Roman period all the way to the present day, it was criminally absent in Eu4 and in a map of this detail it's simply unjustifiably absent.
Mirandela - A town with a very old history dating to pre-roman times, it became a walled city and local administrative centre by the mid 13th century. But mostly i chose it because the Moncorvo province looks hideous with that shape and needs to be split.
Covilhã - One of the largest, most significant cities in the late Medieval Period, a hub of culture and pioneered the Renaissance in Portugal, home of a surprisingly large amount of noteworthy Portuguese navigators and explorers and one of the greatest sources of revenue funding the early explorations (despite being so far from the coast)

Provinces.png
No comments. Once again Portugal has the least granularity, although to be perfectly reasonable, it does match correctly with their historical provinces at the 16th century.
I would just simply rename "Minho" to "Entre Douro e Minho" as it was called.
(I also included the split of Beira and Alentejo into two provinces each, purely to make them more appropriately sized in comparison to everywhere else, although i have no idea if this is a good idea in gameplay terms or if it matters at all.)

Climate.png
Seems to be based on the Koppen-Geiger model, which has it's flaws such as considering Csb "mediterranean" when it's never actually found in the mediterranean and has far more characteristics in common with Oceanic climates, however it seems that the development teams was aware of this and actually included Csb as an Atlantic Oceanic, which i 100% agree with.
The changes i would make here are completely minor:
-I would push Cold Arid a little bit further north in North Iberia, the climate and landscape changes dramatically North and South of the Cantabrian mountains. Places like Palencia, Burgos, Logroño or Soria look and are substantially drier than their counterparts in Asturias, Cantabria and Biscay.
-I would push Atlantic Oceanic a little bit further inland in central Portugal to include the Estrela Mountain range. Like with the Cantabrian Range in Spain, in Portugal it's the Serra da Estrela Range that marks the starkest natural border between the Oceanic Northwest and the Mediterranean Southeast.
-I would stretch the Mediterranean climate a bit further south from Catalonia to coastal Valencia. It just feels weird for Valencia not to have a "Mediterranean" coastline, since it's almost the staple of what "Mediterranean coasts" are.

terrain.png
On terrain, it seems fairly accurate, changes would be minor once again:
-Galicia should be more hilly and with a small plateau in Lugo
-The hills in the central Portuguese coastline seem odd and out of place, that coastline is exceptionally flat, that is until you get to the Lisbon peninsula, where the hills shield the city from the Ocean, and the province "Pontes Vedras" themselves were noteworthy for the strategic use of their rugged terrain for military fortifications in the latter period of the game (assuming it lasts until Napoleon) so, there's that.
-The Estrela Mountain range should be a mountain province, it's 2000m high, it dwarfs everything in the British Islands and i assume they are going to have at least a mountain province in Scotland or Wales.

forests.png
In the forest map i would add a couple changes based on maps of forest density, although this is admittedly unreliable, since modern maps don't necessarily correspond to the 14th century reality, although one would assume the 14th century was more forested than today, and so are my suggestions.
Most importantly here i would say it's the Andalucia area, it seems that there are a lot of woodlands in the Guadalquivir valley, yet that area is very dry, flat and almost devoid of vegetation, it seems that these woodlands are supposed to represent the Sierra Morena, which would be a little bit north of that area.


cultures.png
Unlike in the previous suggestions, here i actually have no hard data to work with, such as 14th century census, so this is entirely guessing based on toponomy and architecture.
It seems like Castile has an almost unbelievable lack of Mudejar minorities in comparison with Portugal, Leon or Aragon, this is very strange as Islamic presence was absolutely massive in Andalucia, this is evident both in toponymy and mudejar architecture, which is by far the most significant in Andalucia and Murcia, and at this period Castile had just barely conquered those lands, with Huelva and Cartagena being conquered only a mere 60 or so years prior to this date. A far as i know there wasn't any mass scale purge or expulsion in Castile during 1270-1330 that would almost completely reverse over 500 years of Islamic domination. As far as i know most expulsions, in Castile, Aragon and Portugal alike began in the late 1490's, early 1500's.
 
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View attachment 1134556
Unlike in the previous suggestions, here i actually have no hard data to work with, such as 14th century census, so this is entirely guessing based on toponomy and architecture.
It seems like Castile has an almost unbelievable lack of Mudejar minorities in comparison with Portugal, Leon or Aragon, this is very strange as Islamic presence was absolutely massive in Andalucia, this is evident both in toponymy and mudejar architecture, which is by far the most significant in Andalucia and Murcia, and at this period Castile had just barely conquered those lands, with Huelva and Cartagena being conquered only a mere 60 or so years prior to this date. A far as i know there wasn't any mass scale purge or expulsion in Castile during 1270-1330 that would almost completely reverse over 500 years of Islamic domination. As far as i know most expulsions, in Castile, Aragon and Portugal alike began in the late 1490's, early 1500's.
You are missing the mudéjar revolt of 1264… which ended with mass expulsions of muslims from Castile. All the sources say that when the later expulsion of moriscos happened, the region with the most moriscos was Valencia, with up to 1/3 in places.
 
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Pedro Álvarez Osorio was considered the greatest lord of all Galicia, but he didn't have control over all of the territory. In fact, he obtained most of his territory because of donations of the king. And, in any case, he is far later than this point and loyal to the Castilian interests. And most importantly, he was from a time with even more centralisation on Castile, after Enrique Trastámara defeated Pedro I and substituted most of the old nobility that supported Pedro by the new nobility, which he used to create a service nobility that helped him centralize the kingdom even more.

As for Fernando Ruis de Castro, his title was not hereditary, his own father had no titles and was named Adelantado of Andalucía, not Galicia. The Castros are even originally from Burgos.

There was no hereditary family that controlled all of Galicia, and Galicia had no special laws that made it that different from Castile. It had no Cortes, which León had until 1349, and nobody believes León should be a PU of Castile I think.

Just because Galicians were quite rebellious in this period it doesn't prove they had special autonomy, it may prove they wanted it, but no more than that. Even then, Galicia was far from the only territory that supported Pedro I.
Pedro Álvarez was probably loyal to himself and no more, his lands were those of the 1st Castros, being that the reasson after his conection with Beatriz de Castro. He had good relations with Enrique IV as far as we know but not that good with Isabel, and the deal is there. They have lands (being herditary or not) and they can do almost whatever they want (being friendly or not with the king). As well the lack of control is representative in the fact of the existence of mixed vassals (Pedro Madruga).

The Castro were maybe (there are also a theory that they were bastards of Garcia II and several others and there is not an agreement about their origin or any theory really) original from Burgos, yes, but they were naturalized in Galicia pretty early (12 century probably), so that's something that really doesn't matter in any sense.
His father was unlanded because of the uprissing in favor of Juan I, and was exiled to the Portuguese court.
The medieval Cortes are not the Modern ones. Galicia had representation on Cortes until the 16th century, as it had León. There were also Cortes celebrated in A Coruña and Compostela (being those of Castille or in the name of the shared king with Castile).

And yes, there was not herditary title of Galicia (just the kingdom, no less), but that doesn't matter. We are speacking of a different kind of vassalage. As well there were herditary titles in Galicia. And in "some way" there was and herditary family who controled Galicia, since the 14th century, being the facto the Castro family (which seen to have the other local families cooperating under its wing, Andeiro, Andrade, Araujo, Deza-Churrichao). As well the control of the family was regaigned through the femenine line in the 15th century.

"Just because Galicians were quite rebellious in this period it doesn't prove they had special autonomy, it may prove they wanted it, but no more than that. Even then, Galicia was far from the only territory that supported Pedro I." - 1st, we are speaking about Adiantados Mor, with autonomy. There is not any other territory that was almost 100 years rebellious as far as I know, and I would say that this is sintomatic of the lack of agency of the castillian kings in some areas (not to speak that was even under Portuguese rulership). And there is indirect evidence to speak of different laws regarding the prohibitions issued during Isabel I reign (but that's totally another thing)


But anyways, that argument will be infinite.
What I say is
1) that would be accurate to depict the Adelantados due the power and agency they hold,
2) as well that mechanics of aceptance or dimiss of the royal autority over such "Adelantados" will be realistic (being something that the kings would be fighting to enforce major centralization as we have seen that rebel adelantados holding power happened).
3) Castile was not centralized (and would be something the player would try to do).
4) There should be also a vassal system of some kind for some entities as "Las Marismas de Castilla"

----
PS. And I understand that repressenting any kind of "unoficial" de facto power would be hard and probably messy, but that is not the case of the "adelantados".
 
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I knew this.


I did not know this.

Thanks for the clarification.

The Muslim population in València was indeed quite large.

1715971622283.jpeg


Up to 100.000 where expelled in the XVII century, when the kingdom had only 275.000 inhabitants, so in 1337 there ought to be an even larger proportion of them, accounting to up to 50% of Valencian population, specially in the central areas of the domain.

Also, Catalan was spoken in Cartagena and Murcia up to the 1500s, and thus the area should have at least a fair amount of Catalan-culture population.
 
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But anyways, that argument will be infinite.
What I say is
1) that would be accurate to depict the Adelantados due the power and agency they hold,
2) as well that mechanics of aceptance or dimiss of the royal autority over such "Adelantados" will be realistic (being something that the kings would be fighting to enforce major centralization as we have seen that rebel adelantados holding power happened).
3) Castile was not centralized (and would be something the player would try to go through).
4) There should be also a vassal system of some kind for some entities as "Las Marismas de Castilla"
1/2) The Adelantados were not hereditary, you can check a list of the Adelantados of any territory and see they are not fathers and sons. So they can't be vassals. If you wanted you could have a mechanic to name Adelantados, but that's unnecessary depth added to Castile that other countries will not be receiving. That is abstracted in the states system. Obviously Castile will not start as an absolute monarchy, but it's not even remotely comparable to Aragon, and Aragon is being represented as one country.

3) Have you read about the reigns of Alfonso X and Alfonso XI? They were all about increasing royal power. While yes, the Ordenamiento de Alcalá doesn't happen until 1348, that doesn't mean that previous to that Castile was super decentralised and then suddenly became centralised in 1348. By 1337 Alfonso XI had already defeated the nobles that opposed the increase in royal power.

4) OK, that makes sense.
 
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I realize not specific to these sets of maps but I was wondering if you tried using the icons for goods on the raw goods map instead of the names in random sizes and directions.

I think, once we learn the icons, it would be more readable.
 
People that are worried about the population of Spain need to take into account:
1. Black Death
2. Expulsion of moriscos (up to 1/3 of the population in zones of Valencia)
3. Expulsion of the sephardi jews.
I'm worried from the other side. Several of the areas that were worst affected are already below average. Western Aragon is to suffer a lot due to #2 (compared with Eastern Castille, who doesn't start with a muslim minority), and its way less densily populated than Eastern Castille in the capture. Add to that #1 and war. That part of Aragon still had relevant urban centers like Calatayud or Tarazona for the whole period, but right know I suspect it will ahistorically end behind Agreda or other Castillian locations in the other side of the border.
 
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4- According to official sources from the goverment of Murcia, the climate there is considered subtropical mediterranean (semiarid) even nowadays, so I supose that before heavy industrialization of the XIX and XX centuries, when temperature started to rise, it would be more realistic to portray most of Levante Coast as Mediterranean.
But why when Koppen map shows it is semi arid (and even full on arid creeps in Murcia) ? I get what you mean but keep in mind western coasts of landmasses are more affected by mediterranean climate and eastern iberia is maybe just a bit too dry or perhaps barely reaching classification for mediterranean. And I think it should stay as south eastern Iberia is the only region in Europe we can say that has almost desert enviroment. And I don't think it appeared just yesterday (20th century) although it is probably spreading now.
 
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1/2) The Adelantados were not hereditary, you can check a list of the Adelantados of any territory and see they are not fathers and sons. So they can't be vassals. If you wanted you could have a mechanic to name Adelantados, but that's unnecessary depth added to Castile that other countries will not be receiving. That is abstracted in the states system. Obviously Castile will not start as an absolute monarchy, but it's not even remotely comparable to Aragon, and Aragon is being represented as one country.

3) Have you read about the reigns of Alfonso X and Alfonso XI? They were all about increasing royal power. While yes, the Ordenamiento de Alcalá doesn't happen until 1348, that doesn't mean that previous to that Castile was super decentralised and then suddenly became centralised in 1348. By 1337 Alfonso XI had already defeated the nobles that opposed the increase in royal power.

4) OK, that makes sense.
1) But no ones need them to be hereditary (neither I'm saying that they were, not as a norm at least*). Imagine u are playing as the kingof Castille, and due the overextension u have to delegate in non-herditary representatives. U may want to resign that title at some point, and that, depending on your relation with the adelantamiento and the power of this adelantamiento, may be easy, or may cause a war. That is it. Accurate, useful, and realistic. Specially in areas with different cultures.

2) They can be vassals without being hereditary... How many non-herditary entities had the HRE..?

3) I know that Afonso X and XI tryied to centralized their power (as many others after them). That doesn't mean they succeded neither that they succeded in all their realm (they may have succeded in Toledo but not in León f.e, random example anyways). As well that doesn't mean the figure of extremely powerful (often rebellious) adiantados stoped being in place.

4) Perfect, so if u agree that for the Hermandades de Castilla, I don't think u are being fair with the other suggestion as it would make much more sense. And I don't want to think u only accept that sugestion because it has "Castille" in its name.

*Edit. The case of the Sarmiento is an exception.
 
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Braga in Portugal; Tordesillas and Tarifa in Castille; and Alicante/Alacant in Aragon would be my suggestions as candidates locations to add to the map.

Another topic is the distribution of population. IMHO it`s a waste of time to discuss. The Black Death, religious expulsions and the demographic change from XVII century are three big factors that didn't happen in 1337 yet.

About the "adelantados" is another waste of time to discuss, unless it plays a role in the conquest of america as a castillian/spanish unique feature.

One last topic I want to talk is about Granada trade. Being muslim gave al-Andalus access to the muslim controlled trade from the Far East in medieval times. Does religion give a better access to some markets (sharing religion)?
 
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Related to the morisco population the kingdom of valencia, I found some maps and information on this book that talks about them before they were expelled. The book is called Un conflicto nacional: Moriscos y cristianos viejos en Valencia, and you can find a bit of it here. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://books.google.com/books/about/Un_conflicto_nacional.html?id=HTXn_dSzo24C&ved=2ahUKEwi7qqmDkJWGAxVosFYBHc9WCDMQFnoECBUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw37dc1jMEuMfR6sAZ1Qem_v
As you probably know already, all the province of alicante was hit really hard and emptied by the moriscos expulsion.
Related to the markets of iberia, is also a bit weird how if you place it in Sevilla all the north is a bit out of reach. Maybe in 1300 it makes more sense for iberia to have a separate market in the north, which in the future would be merge with seville if you improve your infrastructure.
Initially there was a market in Burgos, but it was not playing very well. Again, take markets as not fixed, as we may tweak them recurrently during the development of the game.
 
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Braga in Portugal; Tordesillas and Tarifa in Castille; and Alicante/Alacant in Aragon would be my suggestions as candidates locations to add to the map.

Another topic is the distribution of population. IMHO it`s a waste of time to discuss. The Black Death, religious expulsions and the demographic change from XVII century are three big factors that didn't happen in 1337.

About the "adelantados" is another waste of time to discuss, unless it plays a role in the conquest of america as a castillian/spanish unique feature.

One last topic I want to talk is about Granada trade. Being muslim gave al-Andalus access to the muslim controlled trade from the Far East in medieval times. Does religion give a better access to some markets (sharing religion)?
It play a role in that u need to centralice your realm as Isabel I did before do any project without risk of inner turmoil and resources enough...
About your last suggestion of Granda having access to some deeper muslim trade networks I totally agree.
 
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1) But no ones need them to be hereditary (neither I'm saying that they were, not as a norm at least*). Imagine u are playing as the kingof Castille, and due the overextension u have to delegate in non-herditary representatives. U may want to resign that title at some point, and that, depending on your relation with the adelantamiento and the power of this adelantamiento, may be easy, or may cause a war. That is it. Accurate, useful, and realistic. Specially in areas with different cultures.

2) They can be vassals without being hereditary... How many non-herditary entities had the HRE..?

3) I know that Afonso X and XI tryied to centralized their power (as many others after them). That doesn't mean they succeded neither that they succeded in all their realm (they may have succeded in Toledo but not in León f.e, random example anyways). As well that doesn't mean the figure of extremely powerful (often rebellious) adiantados stoped being in place.

4) Perfect, so if u agree that for the Hermandades de Castilla, I don't think u are being fair with the other suggestion as it would make much more sense. And I don't want to think u only accept that sugestion because it has "Castille" in its name.
1/2) What are you suggesting exactly, that every territory of Castile that had Adelantados should be a vassal? Just because they were Adelantados? Then should every country have every vassal as a vassal in the game? Adelantados were just a royal agent, defined in the 7 partidas of Alfonso X as a governor. But they acted in the name of the king, from which they derived legitimacy. Obviously the king wasn't everywhere every time, he had administrators, like we have today. For a vassal to be represented in game it should be a much more obvious case.

3) The 7 Partidas of Alfonso X and the Ordenamiento de Alcalá of Alfonso XI are prove that they succeded. The later would become the base of the law of all of Castile until the Catholic Kings. Most other kingdoms, like Aragon, had nothing like that. And while, again, that happened on 1348, the bases for it were already there, and all the rebellions had already been dealt with. There are no further rebellions against the authority of the king from 1337 to 1348.

4) Do you think I am some kind of Castilian nationalist? I said that was fair because I didn't know what that was, looked it up on Wikipedia and saw that they had autonomy in their international commerce relations. I don't think it's worth it to include it either way.
 
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