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Tinto Maps #19 - 20th of September 2024 - India

Hello everyone, and welcome once again to another Tinto Maps! Today we will be taking a look at India! Yup, a whole subcontinent… Exciting!

Let me say a foreword before I start sharing with you some beautiful maps. Some of you may wonder why we decided to make the entire Indian subcontinent in just one DD, instead of spreading it a bit. There are two reasons for that. The first is the political situation: the Sultanate of Delhi is at its zenith, under Muhammad bin Tughlaq. You will soon see that it rules over more than half of the region, approximately; so splitting that polity into several DDs would have felt weird.

The other is that we felt that a more cohesive approach made sense in this region, as it’s sooo diverse compared to others, that the way we approached it, both for its setup and content, was from the generic to the particular; therefore, we think that it will also help us more when we tackle the review of the region. Speaking of that, don’t worry much about the time available to prepare suggestions; you may already know that we have a backlog of several regions, and therefore weeks, before we hit the Indian review, so you will have plenty of time to research and prepare them. In any case, as it’s a massive task (we know it firsthand), we’ll let you know a bit in advance when we plan to start the in-depth review of it, so you have time to wrap it up.

As a final say, I just want to mention that an old acquaintance of the community, @Trin Tragula , now Design Lead in CK3, helped us to map a big chunk of it. Thanks, mate! And now, maps!

Countries:
Countries.jpg

Colored Wastelands.png

As I just mentioned, the Sultanate of Delhi is at its zenith, under Muhammad bin Tughlaq, extending through the Indo-Gangetic Plain, including Bengal, and to the south, throughout the Deccan. There we have its toughest contender, Vijayanagar, a county that is a bulwark of Hinduism. Other important countries around it are Orissa and Sindh, but much smaller countries generally surround Delhi. You might wonder how it would be possible to stop Delhi from completely controlling the region, then. For this, two things are affecting its capability to achieve it. The first is the base game mechanics: ruling over so many different cultures and religions with low control will be hard. The second is a Situation that involves the Fall of the Sultanate; if Delhi wants to succeed, it will have to fight back against rebellions, which involves the potential independence of the Bengalese countries or newborn ones such as the Bahmanis, and the multiple Indian states around it, which are ready to take over it.

Dynasties:
Dynasties.jpg


Locations:
Locations.jpg

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Locations 4.jpg
Yes, we are making some adjustments to the coloring of the mapmodes!

Provinces:
Provinces.jpg

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Areas:
Areas.jpg

The bug is still there, yes… The area that is to the southwest is Malabar.

Terrain:
Climate.jpg

Topography.jpg

Vegetation.jpg

Here we have a new type of topography: Atolls. We added it some months ago, as we worked on finishing the map of the Pacific Ocean, and it will be the last one added to the game.

Development:
Development.jpg

A new map mode is born! Here you have the development of India. The most developed place is Delhi, which is part of the fertile Gangetic Plain.

Harbors:
Harbors.jpg


Cultures:
Cultures.jpg

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Not an entirely new map, but a glorious one. We chose it to be the one to present how the different cultures could be present in the game for a reason.

Religions:
Religions.jpg

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India is the birthplace of numerous religions, and that needs to be reflected in the religious map. The main religion is Hinduism, but don’t be deceived by its homogeneous look, as it will be quite deep feature-wise. We also have Buddhism, which is at a low point, after some centuries of prosecutions. Mahayana is a majority in Sindh, although that's not completely exact, as an earlier form of Buddhism was practiced there; we’re also not 100% convinced about it being a majority, as some sources and accounts set the Islamization of the region to be completed under the Ghaznavids, in the 11th and 12th century, while others delay it until the 14th century - we followed the later approach, but we're very open to feedback in this specific matter. Another form of Buddhism is Theravada, which is the most practiced religion in Sailan. Some interesting minorities present in the region are Jains (yellow stripes), Nestorians (the pink stripe in Malabar, which portrays the ‘Saint Thomas Christians’), Jews (which have their own separate culture, ‘Kochini’), and several Animist confessions, of which we’ve already split Satsana Phi, the traditional religion of Tai people, and Sanamahism, the religion of Meitei people. Oh, although it’s not strictly part of the region, the light blue stripes to the north is Bön religion.

Raw Materials:
Raw Materials.jpg

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India was for some time in the period the wealthiest region of the world, one of the main reasons being that it’s incredibly rich in very different types of resources, including some of the expensive ones. That will make for a very interesting economic gameplay.

Markets:
Markets India.png

There are several market centers in India that we think portray well the situation in 1337: Kabul (yes, it’s in Afghanistan, but it’s one for the area of Kashmir), Delhi, Khambat, Calicut, Pulicat, Varanasi, and Chittagong.

Population:
Population.jpg

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India has a big population. To be precise, around 95M pops. Delhi is the second largest country in the world in population, with 41M pops, which makes it a behemoth, with very serious governance challenges. I’m also showing this week the progress we’re making with the coloring of the population mapmode; the stripes on several locations mark that they’re overpopulated, as they have more pops living on them than the pop capacity available (something that may be reviewed, as balancing very densely populated regions such as India or China is really challenging).

And that’s all for today! We hope you enjoyed this massive Tinto Maps. Next week we will be taking a look at the Steppe. Which one, you might wonder? Well, the one ruled by the Golden Horde, from Ukraine in the west to Mongolia in the east. Cheers!
 
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1. The Ahom people are the Tai (not Thai, Tai) people that inhabited there before Assamese arrived, they speak a Tai language, and they have their own religion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahom_people
2. Assamese are Indo-Aryan Hindu people from the Bengal, that later expanded towards modern Assam, and mixed with Ahom people, who ended up taking the Assamese language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assamese_people
Firstly the settlement of Indo-Aryans in the Brahmaputra valley far predates the start date of eu5. Second no people called Assamese developed in North Bengal. Its the intermixing of various groups with special emphasis of Indo-Aryans that Assamese was born but it took place in Brahmaputra valley and nowhere in North Bengal. Having both Bengali and Assamese ancestry i can tell that. Please Pavia look into it. Its like potraying Kurds as Mountain Turks
 
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Lastly, are you guys taking feedback for Tibet yet? I just wanted to point out your romanizations are all over the place. It seems like you're following THLSPT which is a fine system for phonetic transcription of modern Standard Tibetan, but sometimes you show accents, sometimes you don't? I'd recommend using either the Wylie system (most prefered by linguists) or Tibetan Pinyin (system used by the Chinese government).

Comparison:
Tibetan: དབུས་གཙང་། | བོན་
THLSP: Ü-Tsang | Bön
Wylie: Dbus-Gtsang | Bon
Pinyin: Wü-Zang | Pön

As you can see the Wylie system uses a system of 1-to-1 correspondence with written Tibetan, which looks weird nowadays but actually reflects historical pronunciation quite well (and there's the advantage you can easily transcribe any Tibetan text without knowing the phonology). The Pinyin version is rather a more simple phonetic transliteration based on Mandarin pinyin orthography and the modern Lhasa accent.
I would prefer THLSP personally, Pinyin would also be acceptable, but I really don't like Wylie. Wylie reflects historical pronunciation from before the time period of the game which would be anachronistic for Project Caesar. The fact that it reflects Tibetan orthography better is irrelevant, nobody playing the game is going to be transcribing Tibetan words.
 
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There's a lot here, and I am not very well versed in much of it, except for the area of Limbuwan proper, which has been presented very nicely and is very detailed but it's almost completely wrong (particularly the Lowlands). Thankfully Chainpur is there, so I know you guys actually looked at this region, but not much imo.

- The most egregious of these is the lack of Phedap, a very historically and culturally important place for Limbuwan as it united all of the Limbus under one script and made control over them far easier for the ten kings to manage (until Sirijonga's kids screwed it up to such a degree that it is impressive), as well as functionally being a seat of power to get in good with the king of Morang more than any other kingdom in Limbuwan. Having Phedap on the map is a must.
- Vijaypur is the wrong name, it should be Bijayapur, the name it was originally given when it was settled in the 17th century (also, despite how it was settled later after the start date, it was far too important for most of the games cycle being the capital of Limbuwan from the early 17th century onwards and existing from at least 1586, so don’t remove it)
- Morang should probably be here as basically the most important region of Limbuwan. It may be too big for the location density, so split off Sunsari and/or Jhapa if necessary.
- I am unsure of why Rajanari is here. Yes, it's a cool orchard lake but it had little to do with Limbu politics (as far as I’m aware) and it definitely shouldn’t take precedence over Morang.
- Ranibas and Phakphok should not be here, as far as I can tell these are modern towns with no connection to Limbuwan other than maybe existing, but the oldest records I can find about them are from a Nepali census in the 1990s. Instead locations like Tambar, Yangwarok, Panthar, Ilam, Pokblabang, and Mikluk Bodhey/Choubise should be present.
- If these suggestions for locations do not suffice, then here are some more: Shanguri, Jalal garh, Varatappa, Dhankuta, Terhthum, Sankhuwashava, Teesa, Arun (Teesa and Arun refer to important rivers for geographical boundaries between Limbuwan and its neighbors, mostly being Sikkim. I wouldn’t recommend using them, but they’re better than certain locations on the map.)
- I can’t read the name of the last location and tag in the Lower Koni? province. If you could tell me that would be much appreciated.
- The Kunchenjunga mountains should be impassible, causing the border between Taplejung and Sikkim to not be passable. Speaking of Taplejung, it is good as a location, since it actually has historical records of being relevant in Limbuwan since it has been one of the traditional kingdoms.
- Newar as the majority culture in the Limbu lowlands is incorrect, they shouldn’t be present at all because they arrived to the lowlands in the 1790s. The actual majority was Limbu with significant minorities of the Yakkha, not the Newar.
- The religion is all over the place, while Hindu was present, it wasn’t the majority with both the Limbu and the Yakkha along with the Sunuwar, Rai, Thami, Jirel, Hayu, and Surel people following Kiratism (Mundhum sect), not Hinduism. During this period, Hinduism was barely present, with very few people in Limbuwan proper following it, so it should be replaced with Kiratism almost entirely.
- As much as I love the region of Limbuwan, its development is too high. It should be decently lower. Not quite as undeveloped as Tibet but nothing like the development of Bengal.

TLDR:
  • Get rid of Rajanari, Ranibas, and Phakphok, and replace them with the myriad of other options listed here (roughly in order of importance): Morang, Tambar, Yangwarok, Panthar, Ilam, Varatappa, Dhankuta, Terhthum, Sankhuwashava, Sunsari, Jhapa, Pokblabang, Mikluk Bodhey/Choubise, Shanguri, Jalal garh, Teesa, Arun
  • Add Phedap to the map.
  • Rename Vijaypur to Bijayapur
  • Completely overhaul the demographics of the Limbu lowlands
  • Kunchenjunga mountains -> impassable
 
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View attachment 1190144View attachment 1190145
Not a fan of the blobby darkened borders à la CK3 over clean location borders. :(



Kudos for adding the Cochin Jews! :)

Please add the Parsis, one of the oldest ethno-religious cultures of the world which still exists today:
Encyclopedia Universalis (in French)
Wikipedia (in English)
EDIT: I read you added them already, neat!
Yeah the second map looks way better than the first imo. There are so many darkened outlines that it's really cluttered and hard to read.

I will say that the only map modes that REALLY need to be changed are development and market access (basically any map mode where you are displaying a continuous spectrum of values) because those are literally unusable.
 
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According to @Sulphurologist's terrain map, these hills are too small to be shown if we are to be consistent with the rest of the map. So take it up with the lack of a terrain type for low hills, I guess. Perhaps you could argue there should be impassable zones?

View attachment 1190221
I would wait for @Sulphurologist to make his review but there seems to be a lack of plateaus in the southwest. Also high plateaus as a harsher plateaus terrain seem like a reasonable request if only to represent the Himalayas (and parts of the Andes) more accurately.
 
Elephants and Ivory are different resources. The former is for Asian elephants and can be used to create elephant-based military units. Ivory is used for African elephants, which can't be used for military units, and are only an economic resource.

Can you get ivory from narwhal fishing?
 
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Sindh of all places being majority Buddhist in the 14th century seems implausible. Sindh last had a Buddhist ruling class in the 5th century CE post which there was a period of 100- 150 years of Hindu rule under the last pre Islamic dynasty of Chach and Dahir. Sindh was conquered by the Arabs in 710 CE and its been under Muslim rule for 600 + years by this point with a fair bit of Hindu Rajput autonomy. Nowhere in the medieval period does Sindh have any mention of Buddhist communities or any substantial role in Buddhist philosophy / theology. Buddhists from Tibet and China continue referring to Buddhist communities in Bihar and Bengal well into the 1300s, however there is no such mention of anything wrt Sindh even in the Pre Islamic period.

Organized Buddhism had almost certainly died out long prior to the 14th century with any remaining Buddhists converting either to Islam or to Hinduism as happened elsewhere in the subcontinent. If there was to be a guesstimate of the demographics of Sindh in 1337, it would be 30-40% Muslim (with a substantial Shia population) with the rest largely being Hindu, more Jains could be expected than Buddhists at this date.

For reference, in 1941 the demographics of Sindh was 26% Hindu and the rest almost entirely Muslim. Considering that the general trend through the 1300s to 1900s was one of slow but steady conversion to Islam, Muslims being anywhere between 30-40% with a couple of majority provinces bordering Baluchistan makes sense.
 
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I would prefer THLSP personally, Pinyin would also be acceptable, but absolutely not Wylie. Wylie reflects historical pronunciation from before the time period of the game and would be anachronistic for Project Caesar. The fact that it reflects Tibetan orthography better is irrelevant, nobody playing the game is going to be transcribing Tibetan words.
The issue with THLSPT is that there's not that many resources in it I believe. I think Pinyin has the slight upper hand for this reason, since it's officially sanctioned by the Chinese government.
Both THLSPT and Pinyin have the issue of being based on Standard Tibetan pronunciation. Wylie has the advantage of being based on Classical Tibetan spelling (which has stated is also modern Tibetan spelling since Tibetan hasn't had a spelling reform in over a thousand years), but they aren't using historical spellings for other languages so that's not the end-all-be-all.
 
Dehlavi being the language of all of West UP and Rohilakhand at this date is also questionable. While it did end up being the dominant culture of the region few centuries down the line, it would be better to categorize the language of the region as Kauravi at this date. Dehlavi which is really only coming into being at this point (the earliest forms of the language can't be traced past Amir Khusrau in late 1200s and early 1300s) could be the culture of Delhi and a couple of other cities instead of of the entire region which would still be Kauravi until a greater degree of Muslim settlement took place through the course of the following centuries.

Its also anachronistic to call the region Rohilakhand considering the Rohila Pashtuns settled the belt during the Mughal period in the 1600s.
 
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The Bay of Bengal still has a big ocean wasteland tile in the center? This doesn't seem to accord with historical trade routes

Yeah, Carribean, Black Sea, Mediterranean and the Baltic are all divided in even chunks. There will be another pass of the map and revise seazones in some large bays to be ensure a more consistent approach around the world.


Here's a map of trade routes in the Bay of Bengal in the 1500s

View attachment 1095878

They seem to criss-cross the Bay evenly, more or less. I think it would make sense not to have any impassable tiles in this area
 
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By the way, I heavily dislike the bold borders between locations. The old map looked like a beautiful church window, the specific word for which escapes from me now. This one looks like CK3 and has barely any character of its own
 
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Few other Demographic points-
  1. South West Punjab around Multan should probably have some Muslim majority provinces at this date considering its been ruled by Muslims for 600 years to this point, doesn't seem to be so going by the map.
  2. Tamil Nadu should have a negligible Muslim population barring some merchants, certainly not enough to show up on the map.
  3. It is probably a bit too early to have a substantial Muslim population in Kerala, Muslim population of Kerala was 17% in 1901 and a substantial chunk of those converts were from the period of Mysorean rule in late 1700s and additionally through a mix of Arab settlement and intermarriage over the previous centuries. Kerala should be susceptible to a slow but steady stream of Muslim settlement and demographic increase naturally even outside of Muslim rule, however it shouldn't have anywhere more than a few 1-5% Muslim population in 1337.
  4. I'm assuming those streaks of green in Rajputana are Jain, in which case there can be a bit of Jain population in parts of Gujarat and Maharashtra as well.
  5. North and West Bengal was the 'Brahminical/ Hindu' half of Bengal that was settled early, it should be almost entirely Hindu barring a small Buddhist population. Its East Bengal on the other hand that should have an animistic population at this date with a substantial Buddhist component as well though still majority Hindu.
  6. Assam Valley should have a Hindu majority though the ruling class would be Tai/ Ahom. Ahoms settled the region as a foreign ruling class in the 1200s and then proceeded to eventually assimilate into the Hindu fold of their subjects over the following centuries. Hindus themselves however had been present in the region at an earlier date with the Kamarupa kingdom.
 
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It seems like Gilgit would have practiced local folk religions similar to the Chitrali and Kalasha at this time.

The Shin and their ancient Dardic religion (elements of which some authors suggest have roots in old Indo-Iranian and Caucasian belief-systems) were in their original homeland only marginally, if at all, influenced by Buddhism; albeit, this “world-religion” must have been practiced in the area for almost a millennium. The 300 years of Hinduism that followed (most probably, the Shin had already adopted Hindu traits in their homeland) had a much more resilient impact, and can still be traced within the Shin caste-system and some religious traits. However, also this major religion was unable to annihilate ancient Dardic beliefs and religious practices. Rather, the ancient Dardic faith continued with only some minor modifications. The Islamisation of Gilgit and Buddhism in the Dah-Hanu had a much stronger impact. Islam wiped out all male deities, and downgraded the goddesses of the Shin to fairies and witches. Its advances ensured that the ancient shrines and places of sacrifice faded from the memory of the people, terminated the era of the Dardic priestly families or priest caste, and replaced the Hindu cremation with Islamic burial. Buddhism, on the other hand, placed the Shin deities (to a certain extent) within a Ladakhi-Buddhist pantheon, imported Tibetan and Ladakhi gods and goddesses into the Shin religion, changed or modified many of the names of the Shin deities and terms used in the ritual, opposed animal sacrifices (in particular, the spelling of blood), and reshaped Shin-shamanism into a Ladakhi-Buddhist form.


 
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By the way, I heavily dislike the bold borders between locations. The old map looked like a beautiful church window, the specific word for which escapes from me now. This one looks like CK3 and has barely any character of its own
I believe stained glass is the word you're looking for.
And I would agree with that.
 
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The population of Noadihang (the eastern-most location of Ahom) seems very high at 45,000, the modern Indian district of Changlang covers almost exactly the same area and only has a population of 120,000 today. It could be worth double checking this location and neighbouring ones, since I also find it a bit odd that the Ahom population is so high compared to other Shan/Tai states, as an example they were invaded by Mong Kawng in 1401, which wouldn't really make sense if Mong Kawng's population is less than 5000 (I'll speak more on this in Burma's map)

There was a large Naga population in the location, and they often fought with the Ahom over salt mines which were apparently very important to the region. https://tirap.nic.in/history/

I also tried to find a more suitable name for the location than just the name of a river, the best would probably be Makum (modern Margherita, mentioned in Ahom history) or Tipam (also an important Ahom settlement, but might not actually be inside the borders of the location)
 
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Will sentinel island be a playable tag with a world conquest achievement?
I don't think its on the map, its honestly too small and is one of the most historically isolated places on earth with them having little to no outside interaction. Even if they were, they probably wouldn't even be represented by a SoP so they wouldn't be playable in any way.
 
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