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

[Froonk]

In the maps that we've seen so far, grassland certainly hasn't represented fertile lands, but simply land that doesn't have notable forests and isn't steppes. Brabant, the eastern Netherlands and north-west Germany, for example, have (and should have) a lot of grassland but these areas aren't particularly fertile at all.

I am not sure how fertility will be represented but Johan had talked about it being a function of combination of clime, topography and terrain type no?

 

[Mef]

I am not sure how fertility will be represented but Johan had talked about it being a function of combination of clime, topography and terrain type no?

We know that each of these can add modifiers. But that still leaves out the inherent quality of soil.

 

[Kaspar Osraige]

I went through a source crawl once again, read another one of the books posted by Ludi and found some interesting stuff. Do not worry, this is not another post made for Turkish-Greek infighting, though I will post whatever relevant stuff came up about that too.

• An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire by Halil İnalcık and Donald Quataert, volume I: 1300-1600, Cambridge University Press (1994)

This is a very decent source based on primary sources, and I assume it will be useful primarily about the nomadic population data. Here are a few excerpts from it, primarily tables and charts, and how I think they would be useful for the game:

This page is important in how it says the Ottoman tahrir notebooks only took into account economically independent family units able to pay taxes, and as such excluded slaves, clerics and destitute people. While not dramatic, this might alleviate some concerns about why the number of Greeks are so low in tahrir notebooks (about six percent were exempt) It also notes how, by the fifteenth century, no other compact Christian majority existed outside Trebizond, and says the Turkoman migrations of the thirteenth century are the reason for that. If the region was not Turkified entirely by 1337, it was underway.

I am posting this primarily to show the developers the distribution of Turkomans versus Turks in Anatolia. Western Anatolia, Ankara and Kastamonu should primarily be Yurkoman, unlike the Turkish Seljukid heartland (just talking about the Muslim Turkic subdivisions here). This section also says Turkoman flood westwards came to an end by 1348 as there was no more free land, and that the Aydın-Saruhan-Menteşe Turkoman were the ones who populated the Dardanelles area and Thrace after the acquisition of these areas. To me, this reads like the Turkoman migration westwards was nearing its end by 1337, and the saturated population in Western Anatolia should move to Rumelia when it is appropriate.

And here the authors give a map of various nomadic groups in Anatolia, once again showing the Bithynia region with a relative lack of settlement. It also shows the Kurdish-Turkoman border roughly and defines the Yörük-Turkoman boundary which I hope to see in the game. Also visible is the Mongolian concentration in Northeastern Central Anatolia (Mugals)

This book has lots of other interesting sections, including tax and revenue records from much of Anatolia for a long period, and population density data for the Ottoman Empire compared to other regions. While I am sure the developers are aware of this source, I hope it is useful to other people too.

• The Nature of the Early Ottoman State by Heath Lowry, published by State University of New York (2003)

A very definitive book to understanding the early Ottoman society as a syncretic and multicultural power that is able to mobilize people of all creeds and races, showing us where the Ottomans had the edge over other beyliks. This is a very strong criticism of the "ghāzi thesis", as well as Köprülü's "tribal Turkic" thesis, showing Ottomans as a mixed frontier society mostly united by plunder and slaves, mostly in line with Paul Wittek but also arguing against some of his points.

"It appears clear that the expansion of the Ottomans in this period was directly linked to the fact that their banner brought together peoples of various ethnic and religious backgrounds (Bithynian Greeks, Armenians, and Jews, together with Turks), whose leaders were united by the common goals of plunder and wealth. In this sense, it was a classic example of what we might term a “Predatory Confederacy,” a commingling of frontier peoples, which served to bring together Muslim and Christian warriors in Bithynia. At the bottom of the social pyramid, Aşıkpaşazade suggests it was the security provided by the new state thus formed (coupled with a reasonable tax load), which ensured the loyalty of the largely Christian peasant population to the enterprise."

This, in my opinion shows Bithynia should be a very mixed region with a Greek majority (the Greek majority is already implemented but I would love seeing the Armenians, Alans and Catalans running around) but also that the Ottomans should have very high tolerance of heathens and an ability to use these people in their wars.

"The earliest extant tahrir defter is one which was drawn up in Albania in the year 1431, almost a full century after the events we have been discussing. Published in 1954 by Halil İnalcık, this important register has not received the kind of attention by scholars that its contents warrant. What it establishes is that at the time of its compilation there were numerous Christian timariots serving the Ottoman state in Albania. It also establishes that there were numerous second generation Muslim fief holders who are identified as the sons of Christian fathers. Specifically, a total of 16 percent of the timars in the province were held by Christians, 30 percent were in the hands of Muslims from Anatolia (there is no way to determine what number of these were second or third generation converts), and the majority of the remainder were held by Muslim gulams (converted Chrtian slaves). This practice of using Christians as administrators (which my own work has demonstrated disappeared by the opening decades of the sixteenth century), is without doubt a continuation of fourteenth century ones begun in Anatolia. Stated differently, from the fact that in the third decade of the fifteenth century we know that there were Christian administrators in large numbers in Albania, we may posit that they are following in the tracks of several generations of earlier Christian administrators who served the developing Ottoman polity in its formative century. Just as the fourteenth-century Bithynian frontier had accommodated Christian administrators, a century later in the frontier province of Albania the same phenomenon is traceable. To argue differently would mean defending the idea that what in the fourteenth century had been a purely Muslim endeavor, somehow by the fifteenth century had come to include Christians, who were once again excluded by the sixteenth century. That this was not the case is clear from an argument advanced in a critical article written by İnalcık, his “Ottoman Methods of Conquest." In this work he describes the fifteenth-century Ottoman utilization of Balkan Christian administrators in the following terms: The Ottoman record books of the fifteenth century show that not only many Ottoman Beys in the government of the provinces but also a considerable number of timariots in the main Ottoman army during the fifteenth century were direct descendants of the pre-Ottoman local military classes or nobility [Note: read Christians]. It is rather surprising to find that in some areas in the fifteenth century approximately half of the timariots were Christians. . . . These proportions were no doubt higher in these areas in the first years after the conquest."

This entire paragraph emphasizes integration of Christian nobility into the army and the administration as a strength of the Ottoman polity, once again alluding to the diversity in Bithynia.

"The various groups discussed above are all clearly discernible in the work of the fourteenth century Byzantine chronicler Nicephorus Gregoras, who, in describing the nature of Bithynian society at the end of the opening decades of Ottoman rule identifies the following elements: Therein all the Bithynians came together, all the barbarians who were of [Orhan’s] race, and all the “mixobarbaroi” [offspring of mixed Greek and Turkish marriages] and in addition all those of our race whom fate forced to serve the barbarians. This statement leaves little doubt but that the Ottoman expansion into Bithynia had been accompanied by the widespread union between Muslim men and local Christian women which had resulted in the appearance of the mixobarbaroi, (the offspring of such mixed marriages). While not directly referring to those local rulers (e.g., Köse Mihal) who had opted for becoming Ottomans themselves, Gregoras' mention of “all those of our race whom fate forced to serve the barbarians,” is vague enough to include both those who were enslaved, and those who of their own free will chose to incorporate themselves into the emerging Ottoman polity."

Not only in this excerpt, but through a few sections Lowry talks about the Christian origins of Evrenosoğlu, Mihâloğlu and possibly the Malkoçoğlu akinji families' Christian origins, based on some primary source evidence he even claims that these were leaders of independent polities that united under Ottomans banner. These akinji families should definitely be in the game, and in the dynasty pool, as they defined early Ottoman expansion way too much to not be included.

"It may well have been this accommodationist, indeed syncretic fifteenth-century Ottoman reality, rather than the abundance of an overgrowing influx of Turks, to which we must look for an explanation of Ottoman success in embracing the multitude of peoples divided by culture, language, religion, and history. When we do so it becomes clear that the process of subsuming members of the former ruling elites into Ottomans, one which began with figures such as the local nobles of Bithynia (e.g., Köse Mihal, Saros, et.al.) at the beginning of the fourteenth century, culminated in the early sixteenth century by which time the descendants of the Byzanto-Balkan aristocracy had been completely transformed into the Ottoman elite. From now on their offspring (with the rare exception of families such as
the Hersekzades and Dukaginzades) are no longer identifiable as anything but what they had become: native born Muslim Ottomans."

He attributes the success of Ottoman expansion to widespread conversion and assimilation rather than continous migration, which is a better argument for the specific area and time that birthed the tolerant Ottoman state. There is also a longer account of how the local nobility was subsumed around this paragraph, you may check it out if interests you.

"Osman and Orhan were far more interested in accommodation with their Bithynian Christian neighbors than in converting them to Islam. This was the key first step in a process which ultimately resulted in culturaassimilation. In this earlier practice, the evidence supports the idea that sharing the religion of the rulers was neither a prerequisite for admission to, or service in, the Ottoman ruling elite in the fourteenth and early fifteenth century. Throughout this period a primary source of Ottoman manpower was conversion. Whether facilitated by a state policy of kindness and good treatment (for the peasants), or a desire to share in the spoils of conquest and Realpolitik concerns (for the local Byzantine nobility), ever-increasing numbers of Bithynian (and later Balkan) Christians, inspired primarily by the promise of shared booty, opted to join the Ottoman banner. The manumission of slaves, gradual assimilation and intermarriage were all to become means whereby the Ottoman manpower base was provided with a steady flow of religious and cultural converts. In the ensuing process of assimilation, religious conversion seems to have consistently preceded linguistic and Ottoman cultural assimilation, followed by Turkification."

This is his primary thesis against the ghāzi theory, a union of convenience between different identities that wanted to cement their position in the nascent Turkish order of Anatolia.

"The melting pot that was Ottoman Bithynia in the opening decades of the fourteenth century stemmed from a conscious or unconscious awareness on the part of the early Ottoman rulers that some form of common identity was needed in what otherwise was a multireligious, polyglot, multiethnic society. With the passage of time and successive generations of converts the indigenous population was religiously Islamicized, linguistically Turkified, and culturally Ottomanized."

And here he describes a rather quick Turkification of the area without displacement or violence, showcasing the unique conditions of Bithynia once again. This book is definitely mandatory for understanding the Early Ottomans.

• Population in the Province of Trabzon according to Yearbook of 1870 by Iakovos Aktsoglou from the book The Ottoman Empire, the Balkans, the Greek Lands: Towards a Social and Economic History (2010)

Quite the tome, hardly relevant to the time period, written entirely by Greek scholars. I only included it here in case anyone had doubts that the guy who had a meltdown about Pontic Greek population numbers earlier was definitively false. Below are Aktsoglou's inferrences on the total number at the time, and you can see a very detailed breakdown if you look at the article.

• Peasant Society in the Late Byzantine Empire by Angeliki E. Laiou (1977)

While relevant for the time period, this book is far more concerned with the Balkan holdings of the empire, especially Macedonia and Thessaloniki. Leaving this here as a recommendation to the devs and the forumites for the inevitable Balkan Tinto Maps. Plus, it gives a very good overview of the commoners' lives in this period's Byzantium.

• The Names for the Asia Minor Peninsula and a Register of Surviving Anatolian Pre-Turkish Placenames by Demetrius J. Georgacas (1971)

A very good book on toponymy. It goes through the endonyms and exonyms used for Anatolia, Turks and Greeks in detail. It also includes the Greek and Turkish forms over 300 placenames dating before the Turkish invasion. I believe the devs will find that very useful. Below is his thoughts on the extent of Turkification of the Western Anatolia:

He mentions Menteşe area as an example of Turkification, uses Vryonis' thesis of church collapse and details how Anatolia was Turkified and Islamized rather quickly. Some of his opinions are outdated and I believe Lowry basically annuls his opinion on the Ottomans, but worth considering still. He also thinks the "total Turkification" is due to nomadic incursions, and uses the same population numbers I used earlier.

• The Ottoman Empire (1300-1650): The Structure of Power by Colin Imber (2002)

This book was actually suggested to me by Ludi, and I go over it in detail on the other thread, but in short it could be said his views are closest to Lowry on military and noble Byzantines being integrated into the Ottoman state. He talks about how the Ottomans appointed defeated Balkan dynasties as governors to territories far away from their native lands. His views on the extent of Turkification are in line with all the other sources I posted so far, perhaps even a bit more extreme:

Here he talks about the appointments of Shismans and Palaiologos' into Anatolian territories. He also thinks Mesih Paşa, a Palaiologos prince turned devout Muslim who did the hajj which was very rare among the Ottoman ruling class, is an interesting case study of genuine élite assimilation.

Before this paragraphes he says in the Persianate Seljuk polity only the commonfolk were Turks in the classical sense, but in this beyliks all strata of the society were Turkic, as they were newcomers.

Here he talks about Turkish migrations and widespread Turkification. His exact words are "By 1300 Anatolia had become primarily Turkish and Muslim". Keep in mind the person who suggested this book to me claimed that it proved Anatolia was primarily Greek outside of Central Anatolian plain.

This is once again the end of all the new sources I could find, a few suggested to me by other people. I intend to make a location and province rework, but it will take some time. See you then!

 

[Froonk]

We know that each of these can add modifiers. But that still leaves out the inherent quality of soil.

Sure, and I think that can be a decisive factor in some places I just don't think this is at odds with some places starting inherently as farmlands to represent everything having already taken place as needed including the human factor. That just depends on how they would represent areas that aren't put to agricultural use, including areas that are forested or wooded. I believe that's a separate discussion and Anatolia should indeed have fertile soils around Marmara, around Konya and on the river deltas. There are also many areas in the world in general that were forested in 1300 but became deforested through the timeframe, as well as areas which after black death became depopulated or abandoned that it reforested with potential quality soil.

 

[Froonk]

View attachment 1152304
And here the authors give a map of various nomadic groups in Anatolia, once again showing the Bithynia region with a relative lack of settlement. It also shows the Kurdish-Turkoman border roughly and defines the Yörük-Turkoman boundary which I hope to see in the game. Also visible is the Mongolian concentration in Northeastern Central Anatolia (Mugals)

This is a very useful map that I hope developers will use to include more tribal groups in West and Central Anatolia (I have noted these exact regions in my previous posts but this highlights it all in a compact and accessible way in an academic source so it is much better).

• The Nature of the Early Ottoman State by Heath Lowry, published by State University of New York (2003)

A very definitive book to understanding the early Ottoman society as a syncretic and multicultural power that is able to mobilize people of all creeds and races, showing us where the Ottomans had the edge over other beyliks. This is a very strong criticism of the "ghāzi thesis", as well as Köprülü's "tribal Turkic" thesis, showing Ottomans as a mixed frontier society mostly united by plunder and slaves, mostly in line with Paul Wittek but also arguing against some of his points.

See, I wasn't slandering other beyliks! Ottomans had a different character in many ways and I talked about this exact criticism against Gazi thesis earlier, and this doesn't come from just Heath Lowry but other sources as well such as Cemal Kafadar's "Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State" as well which talks about this composite and exclusive nature of Ottoman state. There are other books talking about this pragmatic and flexible approach of Ottoman state to many topics.

Quite the tome, hardly relevant to the time period, written entirely by Greek scholars. I only included it here in case anyone had doubts that the guy who had a meltdown about Pontic Greek population numbers earlier was definitively false.

While attitude and behavior of that poster was not productive at all, I think a particular misunderstanding came from the fact his sources were including Greeks (and potentially Greek Orthodox Armenians?) from Sivas Vilayet into the numbers as well. While that region is not what we would now consider Pontic Mountains, it is mostly connected especially in areas like Amasya and Niksar. We can definitely consider having Pontic Greek populations in around Amasya and Niksar and not just by the coastline.

This post is extremely useful (not that other sources weren't) so I hope developers will consider it strongly and won't be just taking backlash with assumptions made with information from now outdated or obsolete research from decades ago as pop history tends to trace actual academic history with significant delay and games can even cement such outdated historical conceptions if they keep reinforcing them.

 

[Kaspar Osraige]

This is a very useful map that I hope developers will use to include more tribal groups in West and Central Anatolia (I have noted these exact regions in my previous posts but this highlights it all in a compact and accessible way in an academic source so it is much better).

Yes I really like the map. Literally learned family history from this map by the way.

See, I wasn't slandering other beyliks! Ottomans had a different character in many ways and I talked about this exact criticism against Gazi thesis earlier, and this doesn't come from just Heath Lowry but other sources as well such as Cemal Kafadar's "Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State" as well which talks about this composite and exclusive nature of Ottoman state. There are other books talking about this pragmatic and flexible approach of Ottoman state to many topics.

Lowry heavily quotes Kafadar in his book too, but his work also has a very good overview of the entire debate from 1910's to 1990's. Definitely worth a read. It is always fascinating to me that Evrenos might be of Catalan stock. I hope to see some shenanigans related to the four great akinji families in the game.

While attitude and behavior of that poster was not productive at all, I think a particular misunderstanding came from the fact his sources were including Greeks (and potentially Greek Orthodox Armenians?) from Sivas Vilayet into the numbers as well. While that region is not what we would now consider Pontic Mountains, it is mostly connected especially in areas like Amasya and Nikser. We can definitely consider having Pontic Greek populations in around Amasya and Nikser and not just by the cocoastline.

Possible, but this work goes through other sanjaks too to present a total number.

 

[Ketchup & friends]

Why is Kutluşah part of Tacettinids? It should be a separate tag, with capital in Amasya.

Aksaray province seems to be split in 2 by that impassable tile. Either add Eskil to that province or replace it completely.

why are Aegean island provinces named after one of the island? It's not even always the biggest! This looks confusing.

Better province names:
Lemnos = North Aegean
Chios = East Aegean
Rhodes = Dodekanese
Naxos = Cyclades

 

[Delterius]

i guess kaspar has his own truth that contridicts everything lol

I'm actually impressed with how thorough Kaspar's reading of the academic sources appear to be, as more often than not it appears his opposition name drops someone and kaspar finds out that they are actually supporting his position, not theirs. Reminds me of a lot of wikipedia source dropping and how, when you actually read the source, it's either misread or completely irrelevant. Made my early academic career in History very funny.

Weirdly enough that seems to happen very often when balkan people are involved.

 

[sirinolmayanpanda]

When we look at Anatolia's forest percentage, we can see that, while nearly every region loses its forest, Anatolia gains back between 1000-1350. The reason I believe is that Anatolia lost population and farmland. Then it leads to forests to grow back. Fast Turkification of Anatolia can be explained by pastoralist Turks taking Greek farmers' lands to graze their animals.
Farms can support a much larger population than a pastoralist lifestyle. So Greek population needs to migrate or face starvation. And according to Ibni Haldun, Orhan Bey was still living in a tent in 1330. We can claim that a lot of Turcoman replaced a lot of Greeks in western Anatolia already in 1350.

According to İbni Battuta, Alanya is inhabited by Turkmens and Yusuf Bey Son of Karaman lives 10 miles outside from city.

He says that Antalya have a special part for Greek merhant, local Greeks, Jews, and for King. The rest of the population is muslim who live in the main city.

Sultan of Qul Castle (Qul = Göl = Lake) Muhammed Çelebi was outside of city for some days while Ibni Battuta was there. He goes to the Kara Ağaç Plain that ihabited by Turkmens. Kara Ağaç Plain is in the north of Antalya

In Kutahya most of the artisans are Greek women and there are lot of Greek subjects who are paying jizya taxes. In Kutahya people are buying Greek slave girls and put them out to prostitution. Each girl has to pay a regular due to her master. Even qadi has slave girls. I think if the Greeks were majority in Kutahya they wouldn't allow outsiders to sell Greek girls as sex slaves.

Most of the inhabitants of Erzincan are Armenians but the Turkish population also exists.

Muhammed Ayndınoğlu, the Sultan of Bigri was at the time living on a mountain thereabouts, passing the summer there on account of the severe heat.

In Kerch, he came across a Sia muslim. Kerch is close to azov strait

Qifjaq who inhabit this desert and profess the Christian religion, and hired from them a waggon drawn by horses. 212 We rode in this, and came to the city of al-Kafa, which is a great city along the sea coast inhabited by Christians, most of them Genoese.

Conclusion

Ibni Battuta talks about ethnicity in the first few cities then he only talks about ethnicity in one small Greek village named Göynük where only muslim is the governor and the moment he leaves Anatolia to go Crimea. I conclude that the cities Ibni Battuta traveled in Anatolia are mostly Turkish. That's why he stopped talking about ethnicity after the first two majority Turkish cities.

And this is the route that Ibni Battuta is traveled

And most of the Turkish rulers he came across in western Anatolia did not stay in cities or castles. They should be mostly Yörük or Turcomanhttps://archive.org/details/travels-of-ibn-battuta/The Travels of Ibn Battuta-1325–1354-Volume-II

 

[alexkowal123]

Would it help if Tinto listed which sources they've used, so people can prioritise searching for others or scrutinise it properly? Or is there too wide a range?

 

[EnragedKiwi]

As a long-time MEIOU players this is looking great, Tinto team!!! Byzantium will definitely be my first playthrough, and certainly not my last!

 

[waeven]

I love playing on islands like venice island, rhodos, malta etc but felt in EU4 that Island lack abit of strategical bonuses will there be any benefit to playing on islands here?

Small straights like bosphoros, öresund, malacca etc will there be some option to in this game to like put tolls on other nations passing there with ships becouse that would be really fun mechanic and maybe for example if I play as Denmark and put high tolls on novgorod becouse i dislike them and they maybe get casus belli on me and on the other hand I remove the tolls on Lubeck becouse it benifits me (denmark) having them as friends and maybe gets some bonus relations etc. I would really love to see something more indepth with toll system rather than just at trade power buff like there is in eu4.

Really like the map so far well done!

 

[Emperor Hyperion]

We'd like to have the Yazidi religion represented yes, although it's not yet implemented in the game.

What about the Druze religion are there any plans to have it be represented?

 

[Zayd]

The coastal provinces along the Turkish Black Sea are characterized by a climate that elegantly oscillates between subtropical and oceanic.

 

[dynamite54]

Hello, I have some comments on the areas that I am from.

I don't exactly know what subtropical represents but eastern black sea area is a highly humid area. It is raining there non-stop. So, cities like Giresun, Trabzon and Rize should have subtropical if that means the rain there is a lot more than continental climate. Because I can easily tell you, eastern anatolia is no-way near north-east anatolia (the coastline) in terms of the amount of rain it gets but the climate seems the same according to these maps.

And I grew up in Adapazarı. Adapazarı having Fish seems a bit odd to me. It is possible that people got fish from the black sea but it can not be the main source of income in Adapazarı. The city has the best soil quality and a very good climate for agriculture. I grew up working in hazeulnut groves. The city is well-known for the quality of agriculture.

I cannot really comment much about the materials of Eastern Black Sea area compared to Adapazarı as the current source of income there is tea (at least the most well-known one) but that trend started in the 20th century.

Another thing I just heard from historians was that Kuridsh population used to be more towards Iran/Iraq in the past but they moved towards North during the Ottoman times. I cannot really share a source on that and I am not really complaining about the facts but still wanted to share this info as it might be helpful for the motivated developers.

 

[dynamite54]

Another post (I didn't edit the other one since this is a whole different topic.

As I learned in history, Anatolian Muslims actually never had a unified Sunni front in the past. In fact, until Mehmed II, it was mostly mixed.

And I must say, still to this day, Turkish people are quite confused about the divide between Sunni and Shia, you can often hear Shia arguments from the people who claim to be Sunni. So I am not 100% sure it should be all Sunni like this.

 

[Ispil]

So, doing some review, my conclusions are:

• Harput and Keban should belong to Eretna (conquered by the Dulkadirids in 1338)
• Kuzucan, Pertek, Palu, and Adakli should also belong to Eretna
• Artuqids should own the location of Diyarbakir (Amid), Ergani, and Cermik (maybe also Sivrace?)
• Siverek should belong to the Dulkadirids
• Çemişgezek should belong to a Kurdish principality, the Malkishi, vassals of Eretna
• Mayyafaraqin should be owned by a Kurdish principality, the Sulaymani, which should also own Hazro; vassals to the Sutayids
• Sivrace and Egil should be under the Bulduqani, a Kurdish principality vassals to the Sutayids (maybe not Sivrace?)
• Hani, Kulp, and Sason should belong to the Zraqi, a Kurdish principality vassals to the Sutayids
• Seems that Bingol and Genc should belong to the Suveydis? Likely also vassals to the Sutayids

So, basically pretty much all of that western territory belonging to the Sutayids should just... not belong to the Sutayids but instead a smattering of principalities. Eventually the locations of Palu, Adakli, and Ergani wind up under the Aq Qoyunlu which expand from there through this region (also I suppose Cermik and Sivrace to have it actually be contiguous; this could also be adjusted by adjusting the border of Ergani as a location).

Also I don't have specifics, but I feel that the Artuqids have too much control under the current map. I feel like they should not own locations south or east of Mardin, but instead that there were likely yet more Kurdish principalities in those territories that would be (at least nominally) their vassals if not just completely independent. Like, they should be much weaker than how they appear under this current map, given that the Ayyubids were their perennial rivals. I'm inclined to say that their western territories should belong to the Mamluks, for instance (Viransehir, Ras al-Ayn, Al-Hasakah, Araban, whatever that location is south of Araban), and their eastern territories semi-autonomous Kurdish principalities (because you can never have too many semi-autonomous Kurdish principalities).

Basically the entire region of Diyarbakir should be a smattering of small states with some nominal subordinate status to a larger power in the region until those powers devolve (the Sutayids aren't sticking around for long, Eretna's power doesn't last much longer, and neither the Artuqids nor Ayyubids manage to get a leg up on the other). Which is how the Qara Qoyunlu can move through this territory freely and ultimately seize Mosul, and how the Aq Qoyunlu can attain a smattering of locations and use that to then consolidate power and eventually control the whole region.

 

[Ispil]

An additional note, it seems that (remaining under my assumption that the status of the various Kurdish principalities did not change much aside from their outright conquest at this point in time) that Cizre should be controlled by the Kurdish principality of Bukhti.

 

[INVAC]

Peoples run to Europe from İstanbul Asia. CUZ OF FEAR FROM OTTOMAN

 

[MTGian]

• An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire by Halil İnalcık and Donald Quataert, volume I: 1300-1600, Cambridge University Press (1994)

I've got this book. I read it many years ago, but only just started skimming it again for content. One thing that caught my eye is that it had mines listed amongst the revenue sources. Some of those are for the Balkans, but there is an entry "Revenue of Kastamonu, in particular copper mines" under Anatolia with an enormous total - roughly 1/2 of the revenue from Anatolia for that year. I don't know if there are copper mines of particular repute in the area, but it would be worth a look. If these mines supplied 1/2 of the revenue of Anatolia, then they deserve some special consideration (a bonus or particularly high throughput or something).

Edit: It helps if you actually read the text. Yep, the copper mines in Kastamonu supplied 45% of Asiatic province revenues.