Tinto Maps #11 - 19th of July 2024 - Scandinavia

[Johan]

It's finally here! Some questions before I start preparing feedback for this region:

1. Being such an early map, is the province density in Finland and rest of the region something you're happy with or are you planning to increase it?

2. I know people always ask for zoomed in location maps, but could we also get a full location map of the region? It could give a better view of province density and how things connect into each other.

3. Could we also get an area map?

4. Is there some sort of a system for place names that existed during the timeframe of the game but don't make sense at game start? If not, do you have a policy for what level anachronisms are allowed? For example the city of Fredrikshamn was named after king Fredrik I who reigned in the 18th century, so the name doesn't make much sense in 1337. Similarly the castle of Olofsborg was built only in 1590.

5. Why does Sweden own Luleå without owning the locations connecting to it?

1 - no we wont increase it.
2 - i think someone posted one earlier here.
3 - no, its broken ugly atm
4 - its hard, as they were in many cases not much name sources 15th/16th centrury in many places.
5 - because they have enough swedes living there

 

[DOURIOS]

Technically the fjord is named Varanger as well.

Wouldn't be more accurate for the location (and less confusing as well) to be called Kirkenes or Saint George (chapel)? After all Norway didn't really control the Varanger location as those borders between Norway and Russia were made in 1826.

 

[Johan]

Why does the location of Kolmården own the city of Nyköping and why does the location of Nyköping own the city of Södertälje?

Himmerfjärden is drawn FAR too much to the west.. should be here.

 

[Johan]

I don't know the history of the region, so there might be good reason for this, but why are there signficant parts of the northern swedish and finnish coastlines (around the gulf of bothnia), with majority swedish population, which are not owned by Sweden? Particularly on the finnish side of the gulf, there is a significant stretch of coastline which is majority swedish population, but I thought the main reason swedes lived anywhere in Finland would be because Sweden owned land there

Countries in 1337 where not really monolithic entities like today. People moved alot on their own, and with free farmers, the "there is lands with not much people that can be farmed not far from here" is a very tempting choice for a 2nd or 3rd son on a farm.

 

[Engram]

Additionally the border of the Swedish and Finnish languages is too far to the west. I remember reading it was at the river Kalix, though I can't find any sources for language borders right now.

Most academic reasearch points to the Skellefteå river being the "border" around this time. Luleå probably existed around 1300 something, but that's about it. Swedish settlement would take a couple more centuries to actually reach the Torneå river.

You can also find the Finnish Birkarlar organisation (pirkkalaiset) controlling the trade and taxation north of Piteå from the 1200s until the late 1500s. Why would the Swedish king rely on Finns with this? Because there were no Swedes.

Area of Kvenland.

Source: Julku, K., Paavola, K., & Societas historica Finlandiae septentrionalis. (1986). Kvenland - Kainuunmaa. Pohjoinen : Pohjois-Suomen historiallinen yhdistys [distributor]

 

[Engram]

Sami should definitely not be as widespread as shown in this picture. Their lands extended roughly to the modern province of Pohjois-Pohjanmaa (maybe Northern Kainuu) in mid-1300s.

Not really.

The dates on the map indicate the most recent precense of Sámi people. This of course is not to say that Finnish tribes didn't exist all the way up to Kuusamo and Muonio. The vast Finnish interior was used by all tribes inhabiting the region.

Source: Blomstedt, Y., Laaksonen, E., Pärssinen, E., Suvanto, S., Kiuasmaa, K., & Korhonen, T. (1985). Suomen historia: 2, Keskiaika, valtaistuinriitojen ja uskonpuhdistuksen aika, kansankulttuurin juuret. Weilin + Göös.

 

[Engram]

The Finnish name for the tribe Pohjalaiset means the same thing as Bothnian/Ostrobothnian. Pohja is the Finnish word for bottom while bothnia comes from the Swedish botten, which also means bottom. The county they lived in was called Pohjanmaa in Finnish, literally Land of the Bottom. I haven't heard any alternative name being used for them. Pohjalaiset is the correct word in Finnish and the official translation follows from it. (Itä)pohja > (Öster)botten > (Ostro)bothnia > Ostrobothnians. Maybe they could be called just Bothnians, but Wikipedia calls them Ostrobothnians, meaning East Bothnians instead of just Bothnians.

The Finnish people living around the Bay of Bothnia were literally called Kvens by everybody else. "Pohjalaiset" is way more modern as a term. The equivalent Finnish term back in the day would be "kainulaiset" or "kainuulaiset". Kainumaa as in low lands as in "pohjanmaa".

Julku, K., Paavola, K., & Societas historica Finlandiae septentrionalis. (1986). Kvenland - Kainuunmaa. Pohjoinen : Pohjois-Suomen historiallinen yhdistys [distributor]

 

[Erbeilas]

1. Jonköping is misspelled, should be Jönköping.
2. Strömstad did not exist in 1337. It was founded in the 16th century. This depends on your approach, of course.

 

[peter814]

You should add more locations to Fyn, Svendborg (south east fyn) and Faaborg (south west fyn)
Nyborg and Middelfart also deserve to have its own locations

 

[Tahami Tsunami]

The North remembers!

I forgot if trade center mechanics have been discussed already or not, but, when the Kalmar Union is established, will the trade center usually be Copenhagen or can it have a decent chance to be Stockholm, Oslo, etc.?

 

[Zaragoza]

Scania was sold off to Sweden by the Danes five years before the start of the game.

I wonder how would the game models this, and in a more general way, sale and pawn of locations. Here it seems Scania is now a tag because of this situation.

Historically there were several situations of that, including many in which a territory was returned when payment was returned. Since this week map is Scandinavian, my first example is the Älvsborgs Andra Lösen. But in the polish map I pointed to the Szepes pledge and I could have also mentioned the 1459 Treaty of Wiener Neustadt. It would be nice if the game allow this somehow

 

[Boxtrot]

Ok, so i've got some feedback on Denmark. Most of it will be centered alround the layout of locations and provinces, but i'll just go over everything else first:

Topography: Yeah, cannot argue with all flatlands

Vegetation: Needs some woods/forests. Denmark underwent a lot of deforestation in the time the game is set, and that started to course issues in the 1700s. It would be really cool if that was modelled. Perhapse a few events would be nice.

Climate: It feels wierd to have the country split in two. The climate of the east coast and the west coast are not really different. there are no mountains to catch the wind, and the kattegat deliveres the same warm water as the north sea. Properly everything should be oceanic.

Culture: Seems fine. Nothing here is that complicated.

Religion: No comments.

Raw Materials, markets and Population: Not much to add. Although why does it say 711k twice?

Now onto the maps: I don't know if this just due to the rendering, but a lot of the coast seems jagged. Most of the coast are long beaches. They should be smooth.

In a lot of screenshots, it seems like Agger Tange is split, connecting the North Sea and Limfjorden. This did not happen until a storm in 1825. This could also just be rendering errors, but i am just making sure.

Locations:

There is a fair few issues here. Some are shaped wierd, like Ringkøbing looking like it took a bit out of Bølling. ofc, the "bite" is Ringkøbing, making me wonder why it was divided like that. It seems like borders were based in the Amt system from 1662, but since there borders are very whacky, something turned out a bit wierd. There are things that just seem a bit odd, like Salling being part of Viborg, or Funen being split in two, but Odense taking up 3/4 of the island.

Now onto names. Most are fine, but some stick out. Grindsted was just a small village at gamestart. According to wikipedia, it had a population of 123 in 1890. It really only became bigger in the 1900s. Now most places are named after cities, but there are a few outliers. Silkeborg was a castle, and didn't become a full on city until the 1800s, but i think that one is fine, as there aren't any other notable cities there. (As someone from Silkeborg, i have no bias, trust me) Kalø is a peninsular. It had a castle, Kalø slot, that was important, but Djurs should really be represented by Grenaa. Another case of a castle being chosen over a much more important city is on Bornholm. Hammerhus is a cool castle, but Rønne makes much more sense.

Then onto Scania. Most are fine, Swedish names aside . However Åsbo and Brekne are both hundred, not even settlements as far as i can tell. (I assume Brekne is suppose to be Bräkne. I couldn't find anything on Brekne, searching in Swedish, Danish, nor English). Note that Bräkne hundred is in the ronneby location. I assume this is due to the major cities in these locations, Ängelholm and Karlskrona, were both settled after gamestart. A much better solution would be to have Luntertun instead of Åsbo, as Ängelholm came from relocating Luntertun inland. Now Karlskrona was founded on farmland, so it is a little harder. The village of Rödeby (Rødeby) was around at that time, so that could be used.

On the topic of location densety. I think a few more locations could go far to make the map make more sense, especially on Funen and Zealand. How is Copenhagen not a seperate location?!

There is one more thing. Kongeå is a small river in southern Jutland. It is a big deal, since it delineated the border between Nørrejylland and Sønderjylland. And the tag of Schleswig is suppose to control all of Sønderjylland. This river has not been used here. It makes for some very wierd things. The border between the Schleswig tag and Denmarks is supposed to be pretty strait. Ribe is supposed to be in the Schleswig tag. Also when it comes to provinces, Large parts of the sønderjylland province is not in Sønderjylland. I think this segways into a discussion of provinces!

Provinces:

Thay make no sense. Western Jutland is in English, while Østjylland is in Danish. Need consistency. Also they are swapped. Nørrejylland incompased all of Jutland north of Kongeåen, not just that small bit. In general, the names of Sønderjylland and Nørrejylland might just be better as area names, rather than province names. It makes a lot of sense to make Funen control langeland and Ærø, but giving them Lolland-Falster is so wierd. Just give it to Zealand, like it normally is. Bornholm seems to be part of Zealand. It should be part of one of the Scanian provinces. At the treaty of Roskilde, it was given to sweden together with the reast of Scania.

Here is how I would make the location. I tried to follow the Syssel system in Jutland, and otherwise just following either the Amts (The 1662 versions), or the smaller fiefs.

And here is the Provinces.

Note that I called one South Jutland. This is a modern term for the southern part of Nørrejylland, but i don't really know any other terms that fits there. Also, i called Western Jutland Hardsyssel. This is an old term for the area, that is no longer used, but i got tired of everything being "-Direction- Jutland". Here is an alternate take of the location map, incase i added too many locations.

 

[trooper828]

Stone and Iron map colors are quite similar, could be worth brightening stone a bit?

 

[Danskjävel]

While I'm only at page 6 reading through all comments, I'll post another two suggestions for the Sjælland map. First of all it's evident that we need to shuffle things around, as I and other users have suggested. I agree with most ideas except for two:

Korsør should not be present on the map, unless we increase the granularity of Denmark a lot. From my knowledge, both Slagelse and Næstved was larger and more influental as far as I know. Slagelse is a fine basis for a location, as it would encompass generally the same lands as a Korsør province would. Personally I wouldn't represent Næstved, but I've made two maps still.

Also København should not be represented if we're basing the map off of the importance of areas/towns around the start date. Copenhagen wasn't that important until a hundred years later. A dynamic event with a new location on the map would be very cool though. Also would make up for the strangely elongated Roskilde. Which is especially strange as Roskilde was based on the fjords to it's north, and not Øresund (at all). So maybe Copenhagen present after all? Helsingør being the entire area is weird too.

Any ways, I've made two suggestive maps. I'm taking into consideration that København/Copenhagen will spawn dynamically at some point, and that Hjørring and Skagen can be merged if there's too many locations. My preference is the first one, as it's not too crowded, but yet a lot more accurate then currently.


1. Balanced Sjælland.


2. Dense Sjælland.

I honestly want to split Ringsted into two with Køge/St. Hedding/Stevns to it's east, but I think this (like Næstved) is a fair place to skip, to avoid over crowding the map and having too many locations for our poor computers to handle. And after all Ringsted was one of the most important cities in Denmark at this excact time.

In picture 1 Slagelse could be renamed to both Korsør or even Skælskør, but I think Slagelse is definately the most appropriate.

Also, I've split Amager from Sjælland. It should definately not be it's own location, but visually it looks weird to not have a tiny bit of water between. Especially as this was before they started reclaiming the land (sea?) between the two isles.

What do you think of the Kalundborg location? It is so large and incorporates southern areas that feel very distinct from Kalundborg. Sorø has such a rich history as does Næstved (though of course that is under Ringsted). Would it make sense to split Næstved and Vordingborg from Ringsted, or are we getting greedy?

It's certainly a point of concern/visual displeasure Sorø is a great idea, but perhaps more influental later in the game? Also located in between Slagelse and Ringsted, perhaps Slagelse would be an alternative that could more realisticly cover a lot of coast?

Also please seperate Amager and Sjælland

Sources:

Byernes fremvækst – Gyldendal og Politikens Danmarkshistorie | Lex

Først henimod vikingetiden begyndte det danske samfund at blive så specialiseret, at der opstod bosættelser, som man kan kalde for byer.

danmarkshistorien.lex.dk

H.K. & Poulsen, B. (2016): Danmarks byer i Middelalderen

 

[StaunchSquire]

Hey, Im from Bohuslän and very into its history and I have some adjustments I would recommend.
1. First Uddevalla is in the wrong place as the city is located within Kongahälla location in the game so if you want to keep uddevalla you would need to add a location by splitting Kongahälla in two
View attachment 1165368

2. The current province of Uddevalla would be better off being named Hornbore/Hornborg(swedified) as that was the seat of the old Ting of the kingdom of Ranrike.
3. More generally the shape of Bohuslän here looks weird, as in its general shape.

View attachment 1165372

Off the top of my head I cant think of much more, but i could look up some old norwegian/swedish names for the locations as I have the books on if so it fits the era better. Keep working on this fantastic game!

Also knowing what happened in the 19th century it doesnt make sense for Bohuslän not to have forests and not at least be somewhat hilly, which it very much still is today. It would also be cool to have Orust(Ordost back then) and Tjörn to be represented by an Ordost province that is an actual island.

 

[Pescavelho]

yeah, i thought Kven was the better name, as it was used before the game start. Calling them Ostrobothnian is such a cringe name, as its a latinized name of a Swedish Colony name.

As long as exonyms aren't demeaning I don't see anything wrong in using them provided they're more well-established than the endonyms, especially if they're period-accurate. "Finn" probably means something to the effect of "bog-dweller" or even "hunter-gatherer", "Tavastian" might mean "laggard", should those names also not be used despite being well-established and the people themselves having no issue with them?

The real issue is that afaik the region was probably not majority Finnish at this time, but inhabited by Sámi peoples,. I'm not sure though, someone will have to back me up/correct me here.
Based on differences in dialects, we can tell Ostrobothnians descend from Karelian settlers, while southern Ostrobothnians descend from Finno-Tavastian settlers. So it might not be worth it to represent them as a culture. Similar case with the Savonians which iirc are just Karelo-Tavastian settlers and them being considered a distinct heimo is a more recent thing.

 

[Nis Baggesen]

Others have already commented on the Danish locations, and I'll just quickly concur with the observations that Bølling, Grindsted and Silkeborg make little sense for the era, and could probably be collapsed into neighboring locations. At the very least Ringkøbing should be at Ringkøbing Fjord, where you have placed Bølling.

Another observation is that I am surprised that more of South Western Jutland isn't classified as marsh, given that this was way before the land reclamations that happened after the losses in the 1864 war. Similarly I get that, as explained in the Low Countries maps post, you use modern maps for consistency, and thus use a modern version of Roskilde Fjord, but in return the northern part of the Kalundborg location could be split off (into Holbæk maybe) and turned to marsh, given that Odsherred is basically a reclaimed fjord, and was wet before that. Conversely Lolland and Falster south of Sjælland was quite fertile and might deserve to be classified as farmland. Or at least as producing something more farmlike than Sand.

As for vegetation I am a bit uncertain exactly what is definition of Grassland vs. Woods, but all in all this was way before the maximum deforestation that Denmark reached in the 1800, and even then we have places like Rold Skov, roughly in the area you have termed North Jutland (but which should probably be called Himmerland), that have been continually forested for 4000 year. So it might qualify as woods? I mainly mention this because Project Ceasar has such a goods oriented economy, that I am slightly concerned if Denmark didn't have any woodslands for fleets building (And yes I am aware that was also much helped by being Denmark-Norway for the most significant part of the period but still). After all that was part of what drove the eventual deforestation. Even better if there was some sort of vegetation transformation mechanic to represent the deforestation developments

Finally I am surprised that all of Denmark isn't classified as Oceanic climate. I guess by some models it fits, but it seems quire borderline

 

[SavelevTema]

The province of "lahdenpoja" near Lake Ladoga could not have had such a name in those days; it would be more correct to call it "Kurkijoki"

 

[Nis Baggesen]

For trade goods it was mostly different types of grains (Rye, barley, oats and small amounts of wheat). Livestock wasn't too prevalent as it was necessary to mainly have grain production to sustain the relatively large population Denmark had at this time (livestock is less efficient in terms of calories). Legumes I'm not sure was produced in any relevant amount. So maybe cut back on Livestock and Legumes and add more crops. Nice to see that the Skåne Market is represented with fish in Malmö as it was very lucrative.
Many of the churches built in Denmark were built from stone imported from Gotland so maybe stone should be produced there.

Considering that the production is exactly trade goods and not the main local production, I'd say that Livestock is spot on for central Jutland given that the main trade from there was the cattle drives down Hærvejen (which I hope will be represented) to Holsten and Hamburg. But yes some of the Wheat should probably be Sturdy Grains

 

[Ipponen]

Most academic reasearch points to the Skellefteå river being the "border" around this time. Luleå probably existed around 1300 something, but that's about it. Swedish settlement would take a couple more centuries to actually reach the Torneå river.

You can also find the Finnish Birkarlar organisation (pirkkalaiset) controlling the trade and taxation north of Piteå from the 1200s until the late 1500s. Why would the Swedish king rely on Finns with this? Because there were no Swedes.

View attachment 1165412
Area of Kvenland.

Source: Julku, K., Paavola, K., & Societas historica Finlandiae septentrionalis. (1986). Kvenland - Kainuunmaa. Pohjoinen : Pohjois-Suomen historiallinen yhdistys [distributor]

Hmm, I might have misinterpreted what I read then. The Kalix border is mentioned in Kyösti Julku's Suomen itärajan synty (1987). The final pages have a summary of the conquest of the head of the Gulf of Bothnia in English:

"In practice, however, this Swedish settlement came to an end at Kalix, at which point it came face to face with evidently already ancient Finnish settlement at the head of the Gulf of Bothnia."

I knew the Birkalrs lived in Västerbotten, but I assumed the majority in the area wasn't Finnish. Not sure what face to face means here if the areas west of Kalix were majority Finnish.