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Tinto Maps #20 - 27th of September 2024 - The Steppes

Hello, and welcome one more week to the weekly encounter for map lovers! This week it’s also directed at horse lovers because we will be looking at the Eurasian Steppes, plus the Urals! So let’s start with the maps without further ado.

Countries:
Countries.jpg

Colored Wastelands.jpg

A glorious, Golden Horde! It is at its power peak, under the reign of Uzbeg Khan, so it's a much more menacing presence for its neighbors. However, it has its some internal issues that need to be managed, as you’ll notice in some of the maps, and in the future when we talk about the content for Hordes. The Golden Horde also heads its own IO, the Tatar Yoke, as shown in a previous Tinto Maps:

Tatar Yoke.jpg

We have already corrected the Ruthenian countries that are under the Horde’s Yoke, although we still have to correct the Russian principalities, which will be done in the corresponding Tinto Maps review. We’re also aware that we need to improve a bit the coloring of the IO, to mark not only the Golden Horde as the overlord of these countries, but also that Muscovy holds the title of the Grand Principality of Vladimir, which makes it the ‘enforcer’ of the Yoke. These fixes are also planned to be done in a few weeks.

Societies of Pops:
Societies of Pops.jpg

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A bit up to the north, we have some Societies of Pops! This means that the territory of Western Siberia won’t be empty land, but will be populated by these people, which can be interacted with.

BTW, I’m not showing this week a dynasty map because, well, only the Borgijin dynasty rules over the lands of the Golden Horde, of course!


Locations:
Locations.jpg

Locations Western Siberia.jpg

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Tons of locations today… You might notice that the density location is in a progression from west to east, from the most densely settled areas to the less settled ones. You may also notice that we’ve followed a design of ‘settler corridors’ in Western Siberia, setting those parts of the land that were habitable, usually on river valleys.

Provinces:
Provinces.jpg

Provinces 2.jpg


Areas:
Areas.jpg


Terrain:
Climate.jpg

Topography.jpg

Vegetation.jpg

The terrain is interesting here, as there are two main ecological areas. The first is the Steppes, Flatlands with Sparse and Grasslands vegetation, with either Cold Arid or Continental climates. And then we have the Siberian Arctics Forests, which are completely different, of course. On a note, the Urals were set as Hills, as they’re a quite settleable area, but we’ll probably make a review with your feedback, and add some mountains there.

Development:
Development.jpg

The whole region is not very developed, you might notice the difference with India, from last week’s Tinto Maps.

Harbors:
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There are some harbors in the Steppe region… In the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, of course! As usual, we’re open to feedback on this matter.

Cultures:
Cultures.jpg

Plenty of cultures! One note: Although we planned to work on the religious and cultural minorities of the region during the summer, we ended up not having enough time to add them. So what we’ll be doing today is showing the rough outline of ‘cultural spheres’, and then we’ll add the minorities during the review of the region. In that sense, feedback is very well received.

With that said the only note that needs to be made in terms of the cultural design is that we divided the Tatar cultural group into some differentiated regional cultures, being Crimean, Mishary, Kazani, and Astrakhani. We’re also aware that some of the cultures, as Mari and Chuvash, might be a bit displaced, as noted in the Russian Tinto Maps, so we’ll review and correct that with your feedback.


Religions:
Religions.jpg

Regarding Religions, the matter is a bit worse, as the big Sunni blob is just because the main religion of the Golden Horde is Islam, after the conversion of Uzbeg Khan, but that’s obviously incorrect. Also, as we have been able to forecast development time on how Pagan divisions will be during this autumn, we will make a comprehensive review of the region as well, to get a good distribution of ‘Shamanist’ Paganism, Tengrism, and Sunni Islam.

Raw Materials:
Raw Materials.jpg

Raw Materials 2.jpg

Raw Materials 3.jpg

Regarding the raw materials, the Steppes have plenty of Livestock and Horses, quite logically, although there are regions with some other goods. And up to the north, the main materials are Lumber and Fur. Apart from that, I want to mention the mineral hub in the Ural Mountains, with plenty of Copper, Iron, Gold, Lead, and Coal. That makes it a very mid and late-game interesting spot, and playing as Muscovy/Russia, I’ll tell you that you definitely want to expand into that region, as it will fulfill some of your material needs by that time.

Markets:
Markets.jpg

Markets! Big region, with lots of markets, although you may noticed that we changed the coloring of the locations that have 0% market access, which is the case in several areas. In any case, the market centers are Kaffa, Astrakhan, Saray-Jük, Kunya Urgench, Samarkand, Almaty, and Chimgi Tura. BTW, these names are much easier to notice in the game’s UI, as they’re beside the market centers:

Markets 2.jpg


Population:
Population.jpg

This week we’re showing only the country population mapmode, as there are some location numbers here and there which are failing, due to the already known issue with our pop editor (and which are on the way to be fixed). In any case, the whole population of the region is around 6.5-7M, of which around 6.3M are part of the Golden Horde. As I said, it’s a menacing country…

And that’s all for today! This is going to be my last Tinto Maps in a while, as I’ll be on vacation for 3 weeks during October (you might have noticed that I didn’t have any during summer), so one of the Content Designers in the team, @Roger Corominas , will step in and be in charge of the next 4 Tinto Maps. It’s in good hands, as Roger is an Experienced CD, who has been working and focused on Project Caesar for more than 3 years, at this point (this is why you might not know him from EU4, as other CDs in our team). In any case, he will be starting with the regions of Xinjiang, mostly ruled by the Chagatai Khanate, and Tibet.

I’ll keep reading and answering you during next week, and then I’ll be back in a month from now. See you!
 
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@Pavía Cumans were a minority group in Hungary. We also know that some dynasties in the Balkans were of Cuman origin. But, I could not saw Cumans in the map. So did all the Cumans in the Steppes turn into Tatars over time? Also, will there be Cumans in Georgia and Northern Anatolia as we have seen in history?
 
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Can you please revert the change for Markets, Materials, Terrains, and Locations maps? There were a lot of arguments against them. For me for example it is impossible to read the borders of locations as they all have gradients which blur them into one single mess. It places a big stress on my eyes which previous location maps didn't do.

Can you show comparison side by side?
 
I'm seriously not liking the new Location map style. The blobby darker location borders really detract from the overall appearance, and it's particularly bad on the Markets map mode. I hope you change that as otherwise it will need a mod on day 1.
 
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Shouldn't Perm and the other Finno-Ugric people have Suomenusko(or something similar like Sami shamanist) as their religion since they are more closely related to the Finns instead of a generic Shamanist faith that at the moment encompass all the Siberian tribes?
Screenshot_20240927_185017_Chrome.jpg
 
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In view of this Tinto Maps, i'd like to redirect some of my issues with it by linking my long-ass post in the Russia Tinto Maps (which focused on the distribution of Finno-Ugrians and has little critique of Kazani/Mishary), about the latter, i find it relevant enough to re-quote, here:
Mishary culture in 1337? I have my own problems with the extent of Kazani for the start-date (It's early enough for most of the region previously associated with Volga Bulgaria to still be Oghur-speaking/Chuvash), but i think the culture existing in itself is understandable, even though i think it should be contained to the main centres in the region. But Mishary shouldn't exist at all in 1337, their proper ethnogenesis came after the Kazani (heavily associated with the Kazan Khanate) one historically, and coincided, as their own name suggests, with the assimilation of the last remaining "Meshcherans", "Mishary Tatars" stand for "Meshcheran Tatars", the thing is, in 1337, Meshcheran people are still quite recognizably existant, while Tatar settlement in the region of the Mishar geographic nucleus is, quite contrastly, not. IMO, there should be a unified "Volga Tatar" (not necessarily with that name, it can be just Kazani, i guess, although the direct reference to Kazan may not make that much sense in 1337) culture, of which, if the necessary events happen, can create a separate Mishar culture. Besides not making much sense, Mishary is currently placeholding a lot of land that should be of dominant Meshchera (as i have explained already) and/or Moksha culture – They have historically populated everything from the northern parts of modern Tambov Oblast to the western half of Penza Oblast, besides their current populations in western Mordovia and eastern Ryazan Oblast (and the Mongols recognized it), by the way, the current Golden Horde capital, the homonym city, would be largely a majority-Moksha location, and even though the map has no location named after illustrious Noroshasht, the location where the city would be located is named Mokshan, which i find ironic.
I'd like to add that, about the area covered by Astrakhani, it should have many Nogai minorities around the Volga's delta, and some leftover settled Chuvash pops to portray the Bulgar posts in the pre-Mongol cities. Besides, the Astrakhani culture probably should be named Hashtarkhani, considering the precedent established by the endonymic Siberian Tatar culture. It's great to note that the Astrakhan Tatars aren't considered part of the "Volga Tatar" grouping, which includes the in-game Mishary and Kazani cultures.

That out of the way, i feel that (especially in comparison with the Ilkhanate!) there is a weird absence of Mongol pops in the Volga-Don steppes, considering we know that the Mongol distribution followed the areas surrounding main (sedentary) settlements. That should be:
- Around Majar and Pyatigorsk (has Yessentuki in its borders, which was a Golden Horde-era settlement) locations.
- Around Saratov location, because of Ükäk, which apparently should also have christian minorities.
- Around Saray-Jük location, because of the homonym city, which was particularly Mongol for being a nobility resort.
- Around Khosheutovo/Rechnoye locations (one of them, the one which has Selitrennoye, should be New Sarai, Ozbeg Khan's capital).
- Around Khosheutovo/Krasny Yar locations (one of them, the one which has Komsomolsky, should be Old Sarai, Batu Khan's capital).
- Around Mokshan location, where Mukhsha is located. (This one should be particularly less Mongol)
- Around Astrakhan location, where, obviously, Astrakhan, but also Saqsin is located.
- Around Srednyaya Akhtuba location, where, nearing Tsarev, Gülistan (where Khan Murad would keep seat and mint coins) is located.
- Around Dubovka location, where the "Vodyansky Settlement", commonly associated with the Golden Horde-era city of Beldjamen, is located.
- Around Aqmescit and Qirq Yer locations, portraying the settlers of Staryi Krym/Qrim (This one should be particularly less Mongol) and, well, Qirq Yer itself, where there should be Christian Alan minorities as well.
Finishing this part, i wonder if autonomous subdivisions of the Golden Horde, like the Mishar Yurt ruled by the (of later Crimean relevance) Shirins, and (in case of Golden Horde disintegration) polities like the Murunza, could be portrayed as releasables.

I don't get why there are Astrakhani minorities in Alkhan-Kala and Nazran, if anything, these should be cleared, and instead there should be Nakh minorities (20-30%) in Kurskaya and Naurskaya locations, the same is valid for the Kumyks (There shouldn't be Astrakhani minorities in Endirey, but actually Kumyk minorities in the neighboring Kochubey location). Why are the Bashkirs an SoP? They were pretty much ruled by the Golden Horde, and later the Kazan Khanate, the "Bashkirs" wikipedia page even states that:
1727454574986.png

Which would mean that they are ruled enough for the Khan to give their lands to someone. Although this particular statement goes unsourced, so, sussy.

The entire southern pocket of "Mansi" lies in traditional Siberian Tatar land (some of it would later become the northern border of the Kazakh people):
1727455560065.png

The same is valid for the neighbouring Khanty pocket, which comprises most of Novosibirsk Oblast, a region that in late medieval times was already settled mainly by Turkic-speaking Tatars.

Later i may help with dynamic location names, since finding fitting nomad-steppe names for later Russian settlements was a hobby of mine some two years ago because of a medieval steppe RPG i was master of, but that's it for now!
 
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About the harbour map mode, I kept thinking how about making inland locations black in colour while bad harbour as white colour for clarity purpose? Cause I can't really see the location name in black, and a scale from green to white may be great for visual purpose.
 
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Not exactly, Tana was shared between Venice and Genoa and Soldaio was occupied by Venice in 1337
For Tana my understanding is that by that point the Genoese were in charge of administering the city even if there was venetian presence. If that is true, the city could be genoese with Venice owning a building there.
I didn't know that about Soldaio so it should be under venecian control then?
 
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For Tana my understanding is that by that point the Genoese were in charge of administering the city even if there was venetian presence. If that is true, the city could be genoese with Venice owning a building there.
I didn't know that about Soldaio so it should be under venecian control then?
That's what I was thinking for Tana amd yes Venice should own Soldaia at the start witch Genoa having a cire on it
 
Some thoughts:
  1. Muscovy only controlled the collection of tribute of the de-jure subjects of Vladimir. Ryazan and Ruthenian principalities paid tributary directly. I don't remember Smolensk being a tributary.
  2. Chuvash shouldn't be a minority culture. Even today they are one of the few minority majority republics in Russia.
  3. Having Chernihiv area next to Chernigov area is clearly a mistake
  4. Karachay and Balkar (Northern Caucasus) are the same culture, they were split by the Circassian expansion into Kabarda (there should be a Mount Elbrus wasteland between them)
  5. Will Eastern Slavic countries be able to convert all these livestock, wool and horses provinces into farmland when they conquer and colonize them?
 
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I'm still confused about religion map of Russia, there still should be Slavic Pagans at that time. Even in late XVI century Orthodox priests were still complaining about some regional cults here and there.
 
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