Tinto Maps #3 - 24th of May 2024 - France

[Zerodv]

To showcase the issue with linguistic categories, take those 2 official french sources:

Atlas sonore des langues

atlas.limsi.fr

Regional languages

Regional languages are the languages traditionally spoken in a part of the territory of the French Republic, the use of which often predates that of French. Very numerous, especially in the overseas territories (New Caledonia has about thirty regional languages, Guyana a dozen), their belonging to t

www.culture.gouv.fr

One of them recognizes Angevin and a Maine language as separate from each other and from "central French", the other doesn't. Neither of them recognize Berry dialect as being distinct enough. Also neither of them separates Poitevin from from the Saitonges dialect.
In the south one of them splits all the Occitan varieties as the Tinto map does, the other groups Limousin, Auvergnat and Vivaro-Alpine together.

 

[Aaronversal]

Hi, the maps look great. There's just a small issue I have with the locations map. I would change the name of the Delemont to Neuchâtel as it's where the swiss canton of Neuchâtel is actually located. I'd also change the name of the location that is currently called Neuchâtel to Jura as that's the name of the canton that fits the location best. Alternatively Delemont could also be used as it's the capital of the canton of jura, so whatever you prefer. Also this is more of a question as I don't know a huge amount about Switzerland in that time but shouldn't Neuchâtel be in the location of "Delemont" as that's where Neuchâtel actually is. And the location of the canton of jura should probably belong to Basel as they got most lands there at least to the small "research" (Wikipedia) I did.

I hope I could help

 

[Mef]

Also this is more of a question as I don't know a huge amount about Switzerland in that time but shouldn't Neuchâtel be in the location of "Delemont" as that's where Neuchâtel actually is.

Delémont and Neuchâtel just have their names switched.

 

[Nosacz Krumtum]

Will the duchy of Brieg (Brzeg) be a releasable tag?

 

[Demetrios]

There should be no exceptional events trying to railroad the path of Burgundy. At all.

The rise of Valois-Burgundy came through a series of extraordinary circumstances which should be viewed, in the context of game design, as a sequence of interesting twists and turns in one particular campaign where one cunning Burgundy player took advantage of the weaknesses of its neighboring players.

Even the installation of a Valois prince as duke requires both the old Burgundian dynasty to die out at an opportune time as well as the most prominent claimant (Charles II of Navarre) to be pushed aside.

Assuming this happens, the next lucky break is for Burgundy to get a personal union over Flanders. This requires Louis of Male, the then-Count of Flanders (7 years old in 1337), to not produce any surviving male heirs. Without this Burgundy has no initial foothold in the Low Countries.

After that, perhaps the most important event for Valois-Burgundy is France falling into chaos during the reign of Charles VI the Mad, with nobody in charge. Amongst several dukes competing to fill this power vacuum and loot the royal treasury, Burgundy managed to snatch enough cash and revenues to finance its greater political ambitious in the Low Countries.

Then, after this competition escalates into open civil war, Burgundy has to avoid being overrun by the Armagnacs. For this, Burgundy can thank the very fortunate timing of Henry V, who came ashore at just the right moment to destroy the French army at Agincourt (itself a lucky outcome for him, thanks to bad French planning/strategy) that was being prepared to wreck Burgundy.

After that lucky escape, Burgundy has to navigate between the two sides of the Hundred Years War well enough to secure its own borders from attack, while at the same time avoiding any serious military commitment to either side, so that it can instead use that military to advance its interests in the Low Countries. Only with a rough stalemate between English and Armagnac forces can Burgundy establish itself as a third player in a political triangle, with enough independence and leverage to set its own agenda.

And this is not even getting into the different kinds of chicanery employed by Philip the Good to expand into the Low Countries. An expansion that would be unlikely to occur if the HRE had a strong, assertive emperor, for one thing.

Are we going to railroad all of this? There's no reason to design the game to always go in this direction in every campaign:

1) Burgundy's old line doesn't need to die out.
2) Louis of Male does not need to fail to produce a son.
3) France certainly does not need to fall into a mad reign followed by a civil war.
4) England doesn't need to resume the Hundred Years War at a moment which benefits Burgundy.
5) The HRE doesn't need to be asleep at the wheel while Burgundy is eating up the Low Countries.

Burgundy doing particularly well in one playthrough is not a reason to hardcode these results into the game. A rise of Orleans or Brittany would be just as interesting.

The real lesson that Tinto should take away from the example of Valois-Burgundy is to ask whether the game being designed is complex enough to replicate the events described above. The point is not to railroad things so it spits out these events every time, but rather to create a simulator deep enough that this kind of outcome (and similar ones) would be possible as a result of emergent gameplay.

Not to say that I don't agree with for the most part, but one thing to remember - before Margaret of Flanders was married to Philip II the Bold and brought Flanders, Artois, and Free County of Burgundy into a union with the Duchy of Burgundy, she had previously been married to the last duke of Burgundy in the original Capetian line, Philip I of Rouves. Had Philip I not died early, then Flanders, Artois, and the Free County of Burgundy would still have been united with Burgundy anyway, even with the Valois line having never come into power there...

 

[Enric de Vimon]

Aren't there too many cultures?
And why so many minorities from nearby counties?

 

[JustRemyIsFine]

Greetings, and welcome to the third Tinto Maps! Last week we received a great amount of feedback regarding Iberia, which we’re working on, and this week we also reworked the map of the Low Countries, which we’ll show soon.

For this week, we’ll be taking a look at France, up until its current modern borders (which you’ll notice are quite different from the 1337 borders):

Countries:
View attachment 1137981
When portraying the political situation of France in 1337, we had a few options. On one extreme, we could make it a ‘centralized monarchy’, like England or the Iberian ones, but with a much lower degree of control over its territories. Conversely, we could have a ‘French Crown’ IO, similar to the HRE. We decided to go with the middle term, which represents the French Crown lands with the country of France, and its networks of appanages and vassals as different subjects. We think that this way we can portray the progressive centralization of the crown under the reigns of Philip II, Louis IX, and Philip IV, while also portraying the powerful jurisdictional powers of the French feuds. We have two types of subjects in France, by the way: vassals, which represent the regular fief mouvants, and appanages, which were the feuds granted to members of the royal family, that could eventually revert to the French Crown.

You may also notice that there might be a problem incoming related to a couple of English possessions in the mainland, the County of Ponthieu, and, especially, the Duchy of Aquitaine, as well as the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey which comprise a dangerously close non-core location of England (they aren’t big enough to be a worthwhile subject country, even if that might be a more accurate representation).

Locations:
View attachment 1137982
An interesting distribution of locations. Some names may be a bit long, so, please blame the French, not us, and ask if you want to know which location it is.

Provinces:
View attachment 1137983
We are aware that we have a severe inconsistency here, which is naming the provinces after locations instead of provincial and regional names (we were not very sure about what naming convention to use when we crafted this map). So we would be glad to receive feedback on the names that you think would fit. E.g.: Artois instead of Arras, Anjou instead of Angers, etc.

Terrain:
View attachment 1137984
View attachment 1137985
View attachment 1137986
We’ll also read your feedback regarding the terrain of France, although we already know of some issues to correct (e.g.: changing the vegetation of the Landes to sparse instead of forests.

Cultures:
View attachment 1137987
Although there are two big cultural divisions of the French cultures, Langue d’Oil and Langue d’Oc, we think that their regional subdivisions would make the situation more accurate for 1337, where there is a long way until the cultural unification of France.

Religions:
View attachment 1137991
Not a very interesting situation, only 0.80% of the population is of a different religion (Judaism). We haven’t portrayed any Catholic heresy yet, maybe Cathars should still have some room in the Languedoc, as Montaillou, an Occitan Village from 1294 to 1324, points to? Also, while taking this screenshot, we improved the view of this map mode, making it more responsive to zoom levels.

Raw Goods:
View attachment 1137992
The gold mines in the center of the map are going to die, as they were exploited only in recent times. Which other changes do you suggest?

Markets:
View attachment 1137993
Paris already had replaced the fairs of Champagne as the main trading center of the region, driven by the growth of the crown lands and the royal power in the 13th century. Apart from that, we have the market at Bordeaux in Aquitaine.

Population:
View attachment 1137994
View attachment 1137995
Population, and also how it looks with colors when you have the country clicked (Paris, centralizing France since Hugh Capet…).

And that’s all for today! Next week we will move to the North-Eastern part of Europe, as we will take at look at Poland and the Baltic region. Cheers!

Could you rename the Francien culture to like Parisien for consistency? Then when for example half of France is of one culture name that culture Francien, would be cool flavor.

 

[Belgrifex]

Will the Cagots be included? Would be nice to see them have a chance to turn their historic luck around and make their own nation and stuff.

 

[Enzo☦️]

Cultures:
View attachment 1137987
Although there are two big cultural divisions of the French cultures, Langue d’Oil and Langue d’Oc, we think that their regional subdivisions would make the situation more accurate for 1337, where there is a long way until the cultural unification of France.

Please make Nizza/Nice be a majority Ligurian location with a Provençal minority rather than the other way around. Nizzardo is a Ligurian dialect and the city is historically tied to Liguria, this only began to change in the aftermath of French annexation and accelerated after the Nizzardi Vespers in 1871. I feel that this is more historically genuine. Additionally, could the province/location setup be adjusted so that Nizza is tied more closely to the Liguria region?

 

[TalusOfDixie]

I think you missed the point about the Low Franconian / Dutch culture. I can't speak for Zerodv, but the simplification in the Low Countries isn't lumping Brugge and Amsterdam, but including Maastricht and Enschede in the same group. Even today, after centuries of centralisation efforts from Holland a lot of people from Amsterdam, Maastricht and Enschede can't understand each other without a translator.

Maastricht as part of the Low Franconian group is consistent with its borders being Middle Dutch's, since Limburgish (the dialect of Maastricht) was one of the main dialects of the language in the time. The most divergent, yes, but still seen as part of it, and its status is aptly shown by the fact that the Limburgish-speaking border blends with Ripuarian Franconian minorities for a good whole of it. Its status as divergent is due to Ripuarian influence, but this is best treated with the region being a cultural frontier than with a separate "Limburgish" culture that would be rather anachronistic (One could argue that it could be Ripuarian, citing Heinrich von Veldeke, but one must consider that he wrote in a dialect of Middle High German akin to Cologne's exactly for the same reason Limburgish would come to have such great influence: It was the most prestigious language, because the Archbishopric used it).

Now, i admit not knowing much about Enschede, but looking briefly at the city's wikipedia page, isn't all of Overjissel Westphalian culture as of the feedback update? So Enschede isn't shown as being in the same group as the rest of "Dutch" at all. Still, i wasn't aware that there the original language was Low Saxon, so thanks for making me look it up!

But how do you know this wasn't the case in France? How do you reckon that one group should exist and the other not?

We know because we have people talking about it at the time, ok, i get it, you don't trust carefree words (you had the same reaction to the earlier comment about two of the patois being as different as Danish and Norwegian), so i'll show off actual examples. A simple requirement for a group to exist is for it to be identified as a group, that's simple logic, that's the problem one may have with grouping "cultures" in a way that basically equates them with "languages". There is a anthropological theory about it, it's called the Theory of Boundary Maintenance, "what's that?", you may ask, it's simple, actually: Paraphrasing Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives by Thomas Hylland Eriksen, ethnic identity — "the notion of having a shared culture, common descent, a past history, and a link with a homeland, of a group’s self-perceived boundaries" — is often result of contrast with an ethnic "Other" to a group. He says that ethnic groups or categories “are in a sense created through that very contact. Group identities must always be defined in relation to that which they are not — in other words, in relation to non-members of the group.”, in a few words, a group exists when there is comparison to another group. That's why the "familiarity" example, someone from Brugge knows that someone from Amsterdam is not, uh, "a Saxon", in contrast with, well, someone from the "Westphalian" culture group, which would be treated as such.

I hope that was enough definition on how to define a group, now, how do i know this wasn't the case in France? I will be taking some from Difference and Identity in France and Medieval France, pretty direct to the point, no? So well, there's a chapter in this book named "Ethnic Labeling in Twelfth-Century Paris", it's almost surprisingly apt for our purpose here: Paris is the center of the "standard" Francien culture, they know who are and who are not "Francien", don't do they? Also, note that this was almost 200 years before the start date, ethnic identities had even more time (and conflict, considering the whole feudal wars, albingensian crusade that occured in-between) to develop.

In Book VII of Historia occidentalis by bishop Jacque de Vitry, the author makes these very non-ethnic motivated (irony) remarks:

Most strikingly here, "the French" are singled out as a different group (with different stereotypical characteristics) from "Normans", "Burgundians" and "Poitevins". Also, yes, "Brabanter" is detached from "Flemish" and none of them refer to "Dutch" and/or "Low Franconian", i know, we'll deal with it (vis-a-vis my support for the Low Franconian grouping) later, a problem at a time. There are further references to other groups Paradox detached as cultures in France, like this remark by Buoncompagno da Signa (c. 1170-1240), which detaches what i can only think are the Alpine or Arpitans (most likely) as "Alobroges" (an Alpine tribe from antiquity):

Also, we have this support for the dev's heavy weight on language for cultural groupings, since it shows how ethnic identity was broadly seen.

In JSTOR there is French Medieval Regions which goes over the topic not only in ethnic terms, but how places were seen (and how this played into identity, after all, one of the sources for "othering" is where we end and they begin), the case for Artois and Languedoc are very good pictures of what one would want to conceptualize "Culture" around. Of course, you can say that what i just did was a very general case for diversity in France and not a specific defense of any group in particular (well, it does provide defense for the ones particularly cited, but i'd not take this as gospel), but i don't think this is meritful, it shows the most important things when tackling the culture issue: Yes, more than half of France wasn't french, who said it? The french themselves. Now, what particular groups are cultures? The ones we know who fit the categories lined up, Paradox seems to have gone full on the language approach, which is supported by how writers back then saw ethnicity, oh but then you can argue for any group to be its own language? We'll tackle this now.

For example why shouldn't Maine have its own separate culture form Angevin?

Mayennais — Wikipédia

fr.wikipedia.org

I mentioned Mayennais in my feedback reply, i wasn't, in fact, defending every single choice Paradox made, just stating that they were being consistent (You seem to forget that "Low Franconian" was a result of feedback, it was not lumped before, and because of that it seemed inconsistent). The thing with Mayennais is that i think that it would be too small (in gaming purposes, this is still a game) for a regional culture, and that's why they didn't put it, i disagreed heavily, though, in its position as Angevin, if we're lumping Mayennais with anything, it should be with Gallo, because if we're culturally-ing by linguistics, we should make the compromises by it too.

You switched metric, you went from "they would recognize each other as similar" to "language". This is not the same metric and there is no reason why you shouldn't just try using just one of them or at least combine them instead of merely using one or the other inconsistently.

Uh...What? I didn't switch metric, because i was adressing two things separately. "They would recognize each other as similar" is an argument defending Low Franconian as a group, "language" isn't any metric of mine, it's me referring to the metric the Tinto team has certainly been using for Europe's cultures, and afterwards i just explained how the cultures on Germany are consistent with the language metric. I'm totally for a combination of them, if my arguments towards Low Franconian including the fact that Middle Dutch supports it aren't enough to show for it. I was saying that the dev team has clearly laid out language as their standard for culture, we know how they're logic-ing their way into it, it's our job as feedbackers to point out any inconsistencies on it (as has been done with the Netherlands region).

It's also not clear what exact linguistic criterion is used, because you could split Norman even further based on the Joret line, or you could split other dialects based on alternative classification systems. Can you please state what definition of a dialect/language you think is being consistently used?

Uh, the Joret line is a phonological frontier, that affects two consonants when followed by one specific vowel, Norman dialects that are south of the Joret Line are still identified as Norman, they only have a specific phonemic quirk, which is exactly the kind of thing which dialects show, linguistically, the Norman language is pretty much only the Norman language (there's the dialect continuum divide, yes, but then you wouldn't split Southern Norman, you'd group it with Angevin, which is a stronger point, and i might even agree), even today (700 years of linguistic development later).

On the definition though, i think they're going for the "mainstream" take on the patois divisions, that is, grouping the dialect continuums on their most commonly-defined geographical scopes, the only glaring inconsistency is Poitevin and Saintongeais: I'd totally group it together, for one (and have said so before).

West Flemish is a valid linguistic category too, so is Brabantic. Why doesn't this justify splitting up Low Franconian?

Because they were not seen as languages, West Flemish is a valid category today, the difference between East and West Flemish wasn't as detached and "Flemish" was pretty much a Middle Dutch dialect (and not even a particularly divergent one), Brabantic was a dialect back then, but it was the most prestigious dialect at game start, if you have any form of actual "Dutch" back then it was Brabantic.

Can you please prove this to me? You are just stating this, but I have no way to falsify or corroborate what you are claiming, I cannot tell you whether Flemish or Hollanders felt closer to each other than people from Paris and people from Orleans, why/how do you know this?

Well, you could falsify or corrobate actually, you could not trust what i said and go research it yourself, of course, i'm speaking that it was possible, not that you have any obligation to do so, providing confidence is always upon the speaker. I think i've covered the french side, let's talk about Dutch.

Dutch national identity, in itself, wasn't anywhere near being developed by 1337, if we're speaking about identity, Dutch is complicated, because the rising self-perception of group was very localized, People from Flanders thought they were Fleming (or, well, specifically, non-French), People from Holland thought they were Hollandic, this was because such identity status was very very an innovation of the urban centers, which of course, as one may know from living in a place where city rivalries are a thing, can be super factionalistic. The thing is that, your example is kinda funny, because Orleans is still Francien country, and pretty much a good example for what i consider between Flemish and Hollanders in the Middle Ages: I can't tell you that they felt closer to each other than people from Paris and people from Orleans, because i would be lying, they felt similarly about each other.

Orleans' prosperity came from being the northest point in the Loire, the closest to Paris, people from Orleans spoke in a very similar to the ones in Paris (even if more "rural-like") and there was frequent contact between both, because of trade. Flanders and Holland have a very similar situation in the period, since they were both urbanized centers near the coast, in the same region. Of course, i can't just show you a paper saying "here, people from Flanders and Holland saying they are brethren" because Dutch identity itself didn't exist yet (that's why Jacque de Vitry differentiated Flemish and Brabantic people, when you don't have a word for a general group you go to the specifics, it helps that people from Flanders had very strong weaver stereotype), but as previously outlined, groups often define themselves by what they are not, and someone from Flanders would know that someone from Holland is not-French, not-German (as of, Alemannic), not-Saxon (as of, proper Low German) and not-Frisian (although IIRC there were at least later in the period some jokes about Hollanders being Frisian-like), curiously, people from Flanders share these same characteristics. In this, language plays a great part, as i've shown before, after all, if you knew someone in a strange environment and you could understand them, that made such someone obviously closer to you than people you cannot understand.

Asturian language - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Instead of trying to show of your rudimentary historical knowledge, can you please provide an evidence-based argument for why Asturleonese should be united wile Poitevin-Saitonges which are commonly grouped up and considered one language should be separate?

Leonese also has a wikipedia page, it doesn't disprove in any way what i said, actually, both wikis corroborate it, when you stop to read it:

"Leonese" is pretty much continuous with Western Asturian, as i had stated on the distribution being result of colonisation. Further, from the Leonese language wiki:

Besides that, "Asturian language" as its own thing is also a political statement, Asturleonese as of spoken outside Asturias is very poorly supported, Leonese is a dying language for a reason. With that, my statement holds up, i think. About Poitevin-Saintongeais, as i have said, it isn't the same thing (because again, Asturleonese is not Asturian vs. Leonese), but even then i have spoken for its union here.

Or why shouldn't Cantabrian exist when Angevin is split from Francien?

As i stated:

Even if it would be acceptable, Cantabrian would be too small of a culture – But it isn't, Cantabrian is solidly a part of the Asturleonese sphere, and at best a transitional between it and Castillian (and we're talking about places where Old Castillian was spoken).

Besides, the parallel doesn't work. Angevin holds up very well as its own culture (and language, NO parameters group it with Francien, comparing to Cantabrian), it even has its own loans to English...

You went from describing why Spanish/Iberian cultures are like they are to try to fix it, showing that the criteria you used isn't actually valid.

What? I ain't sure if i understood what you meant correctly, but like, i will recapitulate: I was describing on why complained-upon Iberian cultures are like they are, then i added that, considering the criteria used for these, the one, glaring inconsistency should be fixed. What about what i did makes the criteria invalid? That's not how criteria works.

Going by the argument used for Spanish cultures, none of the dialectal categories that exist in East Germany should be separate cultures in 1337.

I do think it's true, though. Prussian German, Upper Saxon and Silesian-Lusatian would all be best represented by a single East Central German (together with Thuringian, i guess?) culture at game-start. The thing is that all of these branch off in the game's timeframe (this is also valid for the Dutch cultures, by the way), i feel like it would be helpful to know how cultures would actually work when thinking on these cases.

 

[Zerodv]

We know because we have people talking about it at the time, ok, i get it, you don't trust carefree words (you had the same reaction to the earlier comment about two of the patois being as different as Danish and Norwegian), so i'll show off actual examples. A simple requirement for a group to exist is for it to be identified as a group, that's simple logic, that's the problem one may have with grouping "cultures" in a way that basically equates them with "languages". There is a anthropological theory about it, it's called the Theory of Boundary Maintenance, "what's that?", you may ask, it's simple, actually: Paraphrasing Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives by Thomas Hylland Eriksen, ethnic identity — "the notion of having a shared culture, common descent, a past history, and a link with a homeland, of a group’s self-perceived boundaries" — is often result of contrast with an ethnic "Other" to a group. He says that ethnic groups or categories “are in a sense created through that very contact. Group identities must always be defined in relation to that which they are not — in other words, in relation to non-members of the group.”, in a few words, a group exists when there is comparison to another group. That's why the "familiarity" example, someone from Brugge knows that someone from Amsterdam is not, uh, "a Saxon", in contrast with, well, someone from the "Westphalian" culture group, which would be treated as such.

Not trusting what random people claim should be how people operate to be honest.
Anyway what's the point of the big paragraph? What you are saying is basic stuff everyone knows.

Most strikingly here, "the French" are singled out as a different group (with different stereotypical characteristics) from "Normans", "Burgundians" and "Poitevins". Also, yes, "Brabanter" is detached from "Flemish" and none of them refer to "Dutch" and/or "Low Franconian", i know, we'll deal with it (vis-a-vis my support for the Low Franconian grouping) later, a problem at a time. There are further references to other groups Paradox detached as cultures in France, like this remark by Buoncompagno da Signa (c. 1170-1240), which detaches what i can only think are the Alpine or Arpitans (most likely) as "Alobroges" (an Alpine tribe from antiquity):

Notice how I did NOT suggest to remove ANY of those groups, so funnily enough if I take this at face value it could support removing groups the author didn't feel mentioning like Angevins, Saitonges, Berry people etc.
It would be interesting to see if the other groups I suggested removing are mentioned like this somewhere.

Also, we have this support for the dev's heavy weight on language for cultural groupings, since it shows how ethnic identity was broadly seen.

Language is not a consistent metric if you don't do the work to make it so:

To showcase the issue with linguistic categories, take those 2 official french sources:

Atlas sonore des langues

atlas.limsi.fr

Regional languages

Regional languages are the languages traditionally spoken in a part of the territory of the French Republic, the use of which often predates that of French. Very numerous, especially in the overseas territories (New Caledonia has about thirty regional languages, Guyana a dozen), their belonging to t

www.culture.gouv.fr

One of them recognizes Angevin and a Maine language as separate from each other and from "central French", the other doesn't. Neither of them recognize Berry dialect as being distinct enough. Also neither of them separates Poitevin from from the Saitonges dialect.
In the south one of them splits all the Occitan varieties as the Tinto map does, the other groups Limousin, Auvergnat and Vivaro-Alpine together.

Simply taking stuff from the internet directly wouldn't necessarily lead you to a correct representation.

In JSTOR there is French Medieval Regions which goes over the topic not only in ethnic terms, but how places were seen (and how this played into identity, after all, one of the sources for "othering" is where we end and they begin), the case for Artois and Languedoc are very good pictures of what one would want to conceptualize "Culture" around. Of course, you can say that what i just did was a very general case for diversity in France and not a specific defense of any group in particular (well, it does provide defense for the ones particularly cited, but i'd not take this as gospel), but i don't think this is meritful, it shows the most important things when tackling the culture issue: Yes, more than half of France wasn't french, who said it? The french themselves. Now, what particular groups are cultures? The ones we know who fit the categories lined up, Paradox seems to have gone full on the language approach, which is supported by how writers back then saw ethnicity, oh but then you can argue for any group to be its own language? We'll tackle this now.

The issue is we are not speaking of whether French should be broken up at all, we are talking about whether Berrychon, Angevin and Champagne should be separate from Francien(or whether Angevin should be split more), how you should split the Occitan groups etc.
This step of the argument isn't really needed, because I'm concerned about which groups are represented and the linguistic approach isn't made stronger by what you pointed here.

I mentioned Mayennais in my feedback reply, i wasn't, in fact, defending every single choice Paradox made, just stating that they were being consistent (You seem to forget that "Low Franconian" was a result of feedback, it was not lumped before, and because of that it seemed inconsistent). The thing with Mayennais is that i think that it would be too small (in gaming purposes, this is still a game) for a regional culture, and that's why they didn't put it, i disagreed heavily, though, in its position as Angevin, if we're lumping Mayennais with anything, it should be with Gallo, because if we're culturally-ing by linguistics, we should make the compromises by it too.

I'd argue Saitonges is smaller than Mayennais and arguably less generally recognized as a separate language, I'd extend the argument to Berrychon and Vivaro-Alpine too.

I was saying that the dev team has clearly laid out language as their standard for culture, we know how they're logic-ing their way into it, it's our job as feedbackers to point out any inconsistencies on it (as has been done with the Netherlands region).

But using language as a factor doesn't mean anything if you split up a region using a more granular definition of languages/dialects and the other you use a less strict one, I don't think paradox has access to some database where languages and dialects are defined using a strict global metric that compares them.
I can also easily show that there is no strict consensus on how to split up French languages even you try being scientific about it, which I'm not even sure is the case here. The lack of consensus over the minutia should make us question everything at least a bit.

Uh, the Joret line is a phonological frontier, that affects two consonants when followed by one specific vowel, Norman dialects that are south of the Joret Line are still identified as Norman, they only have a specific phonemic quirk, which is exactly the kind of thing which dialects show, linguistically, the Norman language is pretty much only the Norman language (there's the dialect continuum divide, yes, but then you wouldn't split Southern Norman, you'd group it with Angevin, which is a stronger point, and i might even agree), even today (700 years of linguistic development later).

What a weird argument, dialects are defined by isoglosses, it's not like you can just randomly define a piece of land as speaking one dialect, it has to be based on something. The joret line is one of the more famous isoglosses within France and it pretty much divides Picard from the other dialects.

The second map is potentially not comprehensive in the north, who knows. It's just to give an idea.

On the definition though, i think they're going for the "mainstream" take on the patois divisions, that is, grouping the dialect continuums on their most commonly-defined geographical scopes, the only glaring inconsistency is Poitevin and Saintongeais: I'd totally group it together, for one (and have said so before).

Well who recognizes Berrychon as a separate language?
Or more generally if you looked at all the potential official governmental or linguistic institutes that classify and list French dialects and languages which one ends up looking like the current setup? Because that's also a non small issue, if there is no corresponding real life classification that reflects what paradox did even after factoring out the "small groups can be folded into the neighbors" argument, I think that's a bit of a problem because it makes the setup arbitrary.

I can trust a scholar to try and be consistent about it when giving his own model, but I can't trust paradox or really anyone in this world to be able to correctly harmonize different and separate classifications for different regions of France.

Because they were not seen as languages, West Flemish is a valid category today, the difference between East and West Flemish wasn't as detached and "Flemish" was pretty much a Middle Dutch dialect (and not even a particularly divergent one), Brabantic was a dialect back then, but it was the most prestigious dialect at game start, if you have any form of actual "Dutch" back then it was Brabantic.

Well you wouldn't have a Dutch culture, just Flemish+Brabantic+Hollandic.
Also I'm confused by you calling Flemish a dialect, dialect vs language is just semantics, they are all terms of debatable usefulness when contrasted like we do.

Well, you could falsify or corrobate actually, you could not trust what i said and go research it yourself, of course, i'm speaking that it was possible, not that you have any obligation to do so, providing confidence is always upon the speaker. I think i've covered the french side, let's talk about Dutch.

The issue is for the French side I'm still still not sure about Berrychon on both the identitarian and linguistic front, on Angevin and Champagne on the identitarian front and I have no idea about Limousin vs Auvergnat vs Vivaro-Alpine on either fronts.

I can just go off the basic wiki stuff, but for example look at the Auvergnat page:

"Currently, research shows that there is not really a true Auvergnat dialect but rather a vast northern Occitan linguistic area. The word "Auvergnat" is above all a local historiographical creation.[7][8] According to linguist Jean Roux, "It is by simplification that we use this term, because in no case Auvergnat can be considered as an autonomous linguistic entity".[9]"

My main issue with your whole take is that you seem to think that the way French is divided is particularly solid on linguistic grounds but those grounds are as firm as Gallipoli in 1354

The thing is that, your example is kinda funny, because Orleans is still Francien country, and pretty much a good example for what i consider between Flemish and Hollanders in the Middle Ages: I can't tell you that they felt closer to each other than people from Paris and people from Orleans, because i would be lying, they felt similarly about each other.

Well you could transform the question to instead refer to Nevers(which is Berrichon I think?), the exact city doesn't matter as they are all close geographically and probably linguistically/identity too.

groups often define themselves by what they are not, and someone from Flanders would know that someone from Holland is not-French, not-German (as of, Alemannic), not-Saxon (as of, proper Low German) and not-Frisian (although IIRC there were at least later in the period some jokes about Hollanders being Frisian-like), curiously, people from Flanders share these same characteristics. In this, language plays a great part, as i've shown before, after all, if you knew someone in a strange environment and you could understand them, that made such someone obviously closer to you than people you cannot understand.

This argument is not valid because surely a Francien person would know that a Poitevin is part of some in-group compared to a Castillian, Englishman or Ligurian?
Whether 2 cultures are closer to each other than they are to everyone else is not an argument for these 2 cultures not existing, because technically this could be the case regardless of how divergent the pair is.

If the game has no way to show a nuanced representation closeness between groups when so many cultures exist, I seriously question the usefulness of the granular representation. We will see, I guess.

Leonese also has a wikipedia page, it doesn't disprove in any way what i said, actually, both wikis corroborate it, when you stop to read it:
View attachment 1138753
"Leonese" is pretty much continuous with Western Asturian, as i had stated on the distribution being result of colonisation. Further, from the Leonese language wiki:
View attachment 1138754

Besides that, "Asturian language" as its own thing is also a political statement, Asturleonese as of spoken outside Asturias is very poorly supported, Leonese is a dying language for a reason. With that, my statement holds up, i think. About Poitevin-Saintongeais, as i have said, it isn't the same thing (because again, Asturleonese is not Asturian vs. Leonese), but even then i have spoken for its union here.

This is kinda of the issue tho, isn't it? The same wiki article when speaking about 2 close dialects of the same language isn't sure whether they are 2 distinct but directly related languages, the same thing named in the 3 ways.
The key take away which you also agreed on is the Poitevin vs Saitonges issue, but I would really scrutinize all the other pair of languages I suggested to remove, by both scrutinizing the linguistic aspect of separating them and also see if the cultural argument could possibly override the linguistic aspect(if present).

My argument is not that "Asturian and Leonese are definitely separate" instead it is more "I'm not sure the linguistic argument for X and Y is more solid than this Asturleonese case", I hope I have also shown above why I think so for Auvergnat(both the wiki article and the isoglosses map)

Besides, the parallel doesn't work. Angevin holds up very well as its own culture (and language, NO parameters group it with Francien, comparing to Cantabrian), it even has its own loans to English...

Well the modern French ministry of culture doesn't recognize it at least. It's not yet fully clear.
Whether Angevin influence English has no bearing on whether it should be a culture IMO, it's just irrelevant.

What? I ain't sure if i understood what you meant correctly, but like, i will recapitulate: I was describing on why complained-upon Iberian cultures are like they are, then i added that, considering the criteria used for these, the one, glaring inconsistency should be fixed. What about what i did makes the criteria invalid? That's not how criteria works.

Of the 5 southern expansions we have, 1 of them produced a separate culture. You might say 1 out of 5 is just an exception to a rule, I'd say that with such a low sample size any counterexample invalidates the criteria.

I do think it's true, though. Prussian German, Upper Saxon and Silesian-Lusatian would all be best represented by a single East Central German (together with Thuringian, i guess?) culture at game-start. The thing is that all of these branch off in the game's timeframe (this is also valid for the Dutch cultures, by the way), i feel like it would be helpful to know how cultures would actually work when thinking on these cases.

Everything East of the Elb pretty much, maybe even no Austrian culture at this point lol

 

[Mindel]

Not to say that I don't agree with for the most part, but one thing to remember - before Margaret of Flanders was married to Philip II the Bold and brought Flanders, Artois, and Free County of Burgundy into a union with the Duchy of Burgundy, she had previously been married to the last duke of Burgundy in the original Capetian line, Philip I of Rouves. Had Philip I not died early, then Flanders, Artois, and the Free County of Burgundy would still have been united with Burgundy anyway, even with the Valois line having never come into power there...

Then there would be no Valois-Burgundy at all. The whole discussion was about what you would need to railroad to engineer the rise of Valois-Burgundy.

 

[Xerx3s]

Hi Pavia and the team,

Can't wait to delve into this Project Caesar game which certainly depicts Europe while seeming pretty universal.

Great job on the French maps, some quick comments which I hope might prove useful. I'll list them in the sequence of the maps you presented ;

1. Locations
- typo at Baugency which takes an "e" => Beaugency
- not much to add on the shape of locations, except that Bourges seems a bit snaky and may deserve to be split with Vierzon

2. Provinces. You asked for some suggestions so let's go
- Cornouaille => Finistère (so as to remote any ambiguity with British Cornwall)
- Vannes => Morbihan
- Angers => Anjou indeed
- Thouars => Vendée
- Saintes => Saintonge
- Bordeaux => Guyenne ?
- Pau => Béarn
- Poitiers => Poitou
- Tours => Touraine
- Le Mans => Maine
- Cherbourg => Cotentin
- Caen => Calvados
- Amiens => Picardie
- Arras => Artois indeed
- Nemours => Beauce
- Reims => Champagne but it seems to run pretty high. Room for one additional "Ardennes" province maybe
- Nevers => Nièvres
- Nancy => Lorraine
- Dijon => Bourgogne
- Amont/Aval/milieu => kinda weird. Roughly corresponds to the "Comté Franche" - de Bourgogne- (at least the parts that fall under the HRE)
- Viviers => Ardèche

3. Topography (but my comment probably spills over to Climate)
In a word I find the map to be really flat overall. One should bear in mind that the geological specificity that gave France its position and role as a corridor between the Mediterranean and Northern Europe for many centuries is the fact that North and South are connected by the narrow "couloir rhodanien" ie. the valley of Rhone.
To put it differently, and it probably provides nice gameplay as well, one could expect a much more pronounced Massif Central which only leaves narrow passages to Marseille from the East or the West.
See this map for a simpler visualization ; https://fr-fr.topographic-map.com/m...nter=43.13306,-2.10938&popup=47.94717,7.04224
In the same vein Jura and Vosges could benefit from some more "altitude", maybe one tile of mountains with more hills, given that they also formed naturel corridors in many historical conflicts. No arguing that the way further north is wide open

4. Vegetation
- the area between Paris and Orléans definitely deserves some "farmlands" as it was considered the breadbasket of the country for some time
- I could see some marshes (especially at that time !) in the South in Camargue (Nïmes) and Sologne (between Blois and Vierzon)

5. Raw Goods
Except if you guys had an imperative gameplay motive, please for the love of God no olives North of the Loire river (and I am being generous) ! You added so many as far north as Metz (even with climate change growing olive trees there seems a stretch)

Keep up the good work !

 

[WrathfulCelt]

Not necessarily a suggestion, since I don't know nearly enough about the significance of legumes in the Paris region, but I would like bring up the catacombs of Paris, or more specifically, the mines that predate them, since I haven't seen them mentioned yet.
The local resource could potentially be changed to stone to account for them? From my understanding, the mines in question were mostly gypsum mines, but it feels like stone would be the closest, and they did also mine limestone.

 

[Twoflower]

I am not an expert on French dialects or regional identities in France in medieval times, still I would like to make one argument and pose one question regarding the setup:
1. The level of granularity is basically the same as in EU4. EU4 has Francien, Picard, Norman, Bourguignon, Gascon and Occitan cultures. It seems to me that this degree of differentiation is just applied a bit more consistently with the new cultures.
2. That said, I - as someone who is not an expert and only decently speaks and understands standard French - I wonder about the rationale for including Saintongeais as a separate culture. Linguistically, as far I could gather from wikipedia (for as much as that is worth as a source), Poitevin-Saintongeais are considered one language with two main dialects. I cannot really tell if there are any other differences in regional identity or traditions that would necessitate splitting that area in two cultures. At first glance, it would seem to me that these two areas and dialects are no more different than e.g. Parisien and Orléanais or Angevin, Sarthois and Mayennais.

 

[Arthe0s]

Wow all of these maps look really good, I'm really looking forward for more beautiful maps! But as a frenchman I can't help but notice some inaccuraties :

• For the naming of the provinces, I would definitely go with Artois instead of Arras, Anjou instead of Angers, etc. as you proposed. Also, I think Picardie would be better than Amiens, and same thing with Cherbourg changed to Cotentin and Thouars to Vendée or to Bas-Poitou and Grenoble to Dauphiné. You could maybe refer to the old royal military governorates for some provinces (I can't include links but the wikipedia page is only in french and is named Gouvernements généraux et particuliers). And for the provinces in Franche-Comté : Amont, Millieu and Aval sound odd because in french it's litteraly Upstream, Middle, Downstream but I really don't know what names would be better.
• For the raw goods, I would recommend to put Salt in Guérande and in Salins.
• And concerning Brittany's independance, I think it's good as a vassal in 1337 because it gained most of its independance as a result of the 1341 Breton Succession War (itself part of the Hundred-Years War).

I hope that helps!

 

[Mef]

Not necessarily a suggestion, since I don't know nearly enough about the significance of legumes in the Paris region, but I would like bring up the catacombs of Paris, or more specifically, the mines that predate them, since I haven't seen them mentioned yet.
The local resource could potentially be changed to stone to account for them? From my understanding, the mines in question were mostly gypsum mines, but it feels like stone would be the closest, and they did also mine limestone.

I'd say the agricultural output of Ile-de-France is probably more significant than stone mining.

 

[Sonerd]

 

[Mef]

By the way, why does Genève have silk production? I thought it was only in Italy and Spain at the start of the game?
Is there a source for silk there in 1337?
If it's supposed to represent later production, then certain French locations should probably have silk too.

 

[Carlos Burbon]

No Monaco?