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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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Provinces 3.jpg

Provinces 4.jpg

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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Cultures 3.jpg
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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Could you possibly do a map depiction of these 10 Limbuwan kingdoms it would probably be good for the devs to be able to have an idea for your suggestion.These seem to be the 10 Kingdoms of Limbuwan View attachment 1200488
I wasn’t initially planning to research and post further about India, but since you asked up, here’s my take. The size of Limbuwan was likely around 30,000 to 40,000 square kilometers—just an educated guess on my part.Athrai was probably the smallest kingdom(maybe 500sqkm) .Below is the attachment of the map.The Nepali version of the information seems mostly accurate, though the English version lacks some depth in certain areas.

If I find the time in the future (currently, it’s the festive season here), I might refine the English version—especially if the developers show a positive stance toward adding more granularity to the details. Until then, it feels like a waste of time to dive too deeply into it right now.

Note:The map might be subject to strong interpretation .Anyone is free to improvise it
 

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Topographical analysis for India​

Plateaus, wetlands and hills - oh my!

I'll summarize first, because this is going to be a lengthy post.
Nomenclature I use is from this map.

General:
- Southern India (Deccan) is overexaggerated in terms of hills, with a serious lack of plateaus (it's called the Deccan or Maharashtra Plateau after all)
- More Flatlands/Plateaus for the Vindhya range and Malwa plateau
- Some general minor readjustments

Wetlands:
- The Wetlands of the Ganges-Brahmaputra rivers needs some serious expansion.
- Eastern indian coast has some other wetland 'hotspots'
- Although arid, the Indus valley has plenty of wetlands with lots of open oxbow lakes and other waters.

Impassables - calling all forumites: please add to this discussion!
- The Western Ghats needs some redesign to some extent: narrower and longer shapes
- Southwestern Ghats needs some expansion (Venad region)
- Southeastern Ghats: needs some openings for Rajampet
- Northeastern Ghats: coastal impassables seem to have had pretty significant population presence.

Suggestions map and reference maps​

Current Tinto classification
(removed some of the stained glass effect for clarity)
Suggested edits
Black-white - preliminary suggestions for adding/removing impassable
purple: suggested topographic crossings.
'Changelog' of suggested edits
TM19_TopoTinto.png
TM19_TopoSuggestions.png
TM19_TopoChanges.png

Terrain Ruggedness IndexDEM with exaggeration of topographic featuresDEM with linear color scale (up to 4000 m)
TM19_DEM_TRI.png
TM19_DEM_Colorful.png
TM19_DEM_Viridis.png

Wetlands​

In theory, the majority of Brahmaputra and Ganges river valleys are all to be considered wetlands. However, it doesn't seem fitting to turn the entirety of the Eastern Indian continent into a single wetland, one of the - if not thé - highest populated regions of the world at the time. I therefore confronted which regions of the wetlands still have a significant flooding risk up to this day.
If someone has found any papers on the subject, let me know - i came up short :/
Disclaimer: the coastal mangroves supposedly have no flooding risk, because they are fully influenced by the sea and not by rivers. I also removed 'arid marshes' from the equation, as they are more akin to the spirit of 'flatlands' in my opinion.

Overview of all wetlands of the Indian continent.Water depth during '100 year flood events' (proxy for flooding risk)Combination of both maps with outline of suggested wetland extent.
TM19_Wetlands_CIFOR.png
TM19_Wetlands_Floodrisk.png
PxotjYh.png
@Ekyman - the CIFOR dataset is apparently the base for the Global wetlands and lakes database, but minus the rice paddies.

Impassables​

For the Western Ghats the impassables speak for themselves. Although they don't really light up on the TRI map, it is obvious that these thin, sharp crests pose serious logistical challenges. However, I think that the impassables are too 'thick' in a lot of places, while ignoring some other significant crests of the Ghats in the south.
Some of the other impassables seem to have an odd shape when compared to the topography, but perhaps climate, vegetation or historical reasons could be the basis for those. Howver, when confronted with modern population data (as a habitability proxy), I find there are some odd discrepancies.

Some examples:
- Marusthali desert is insignificant in current design
- Northeastern Ghats have zones with significant populaton presence
- Western Ghats uninhabited zone is thinner when compared to curent design.
- Satpura Range has impassables in seemingly the wrong spot (needs to be shifted a bit)

If anyone has more insights they want to share on these impassables, please do, because I feel like I don't know enough about them for this region.

Modern population data confronted with delineation of Tinto's impassables and my preliminary suggestions.
- White: Significant population presence
- Gray: Insignificant population presence, not within Tinto's impassables
- Red: Significant population presence overlapping Tinto's impassables
- Dark Red: Insignificant population presence overlapping Tinto's impassables
HYDE 3.3's population density model for 1300 AD (indicative use only)
Gray: Tinto's impassables as semi-transparant overlay
Modern population - GHS population census (2020)
TM19_ImpassablesPopulation.png
TM19_HYDE_1300_Popdensity.png
TM19_PopulationModern.png

@Atromb and @PerhapsItsChondoLal - feel free to add to this since you were interested in me posting this.
 
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I want to emphasize that several locations along the Indo-Nepal border seem to have been arbitrarily placed under Delhi's historical influence without concrete evidence, despite it making little sense based on local historical and cultural contexts. The following are key locations in question:

1. Tulsipur:​

  • Cultural Composition: Tulsipur should be primarily associated with the Khasa Kingdom, with Tharu culture being dominant, followed by Awadhi influences and a Khasa minority. The Tharus have historically been the indigenous people of the Terai region, including the Dang and Deukhuri Valleys.
  • Historical Significance: The House of Tulsipur ruled one of the largest Taluqs (landholdings) of the Oudh (Awadh) region in northern India. At its height, Tulsipur's territory included the Dang and Deukhuri Valleys, placing it within what later became Baise Rajya (22 Principalities) of western Nepal. Tulsipur's integration into the Khasa dominion makes historical sense given its geographical proximity and cultural affiliations with the Khasas.

2. Lumbini:​

  • Khasa Influence: There is evidence of Khasa inscriptions in Lumbini, reinforcing the idea that the Khasa Kingdom had some level of control or influence in the region during the medieval period.
  • Delhi's Absence: There are no historical records to suggest that Delhi occupied or exercised control over Nepal's interior regions, including Lumbini. The Khasa Kingdom was a dominant force in the western and mid-western regions of Nepal during this time.

3. Makwanpur:​

  • Independent Kingdom: Makwanpur should be considered either an independent kingdom or under the influence of the Malla Dynasty. While there is no direct historical record of the Mallas ruling Makwanpur, it is likely they had more influence over the region than the recently emerging Delhi Sultanate.
  • Geopolitical Context: Historically, the Malla Kingdom and Tirhut had multiple skirmishes, making the idea of no shared border between them questionable. Additionally, Makwanpur was not part of Mithila and there is no strong evidence to suggest that Delhi had any foothold in the Nepali hills.
  • Cultural Influence: Tamang culture should also be acknowledged as significant in the Makwanpur area. Delhi's influence was minimal in this region, and while it may have occupied parts of the Indian Terai, it did not penetrate the hills of Nepal.

4. Simraungadh:​

  • Capital of Mithila: Simraungadh was historically the capital of the Mithila Kingdom, which was ruled by the Karnat Dynasty, also known as the Simraun Dynasty. The city was founded by Nanyadeva of the Karnat lineage in the 11th century and became an important political and cultural center.
  • Later Rule: Following the collapse of the Karnat dynasty in the 14th century, Simraungadh came under the control of the Oiniwar Dynasty of Mithila until the Sens of Makwanpur rose to power in the 16th century. The Sens later extended their influence over Simraungadh.

5. Salianah:​

I think by salianah you mean salyan .There was also a princedom called salyan that rose after the disintegration of khasa (on the same region ))
1728973216142.png
 
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Does anybody know what this location represents? It's too blurry for my to clearly tell. All I can make out is "Kalin__magara", but I don't know of any settlement in that region that has a name like that.
 
Problems to avoid for Delhi Sultanate to avoid disintegration -
Mohammad Bin Tughlaq (1325-51) 5 Badly executed failed projects -
1. Shift of the capital from Jahāpanāh to Deogiri (Daulatābād)
□ Isāmi's Futuh-us-Salātin: happened before issuance of token currency
□ Ibn Battutāh: Shift happened because the palace was receiving abusive letters from people. (Isāmi agrees)
□ Barani: Happened because of centrality of Deogiri in Deccan. This information is geographically inaccurate.
2. Token Currency (1329-30)
□ Face value of the coin remained the same, the intrinsic value was debased.
□ Tanka Silver 172 gram debased to Tanka Silver 140 gram
□ Dinar Good 172 gram lifted up to Dinar Gold 200 gram
□ The problem of the system was Jītal - It was removed and replaced with an alloy Bronze. Bronze Coins was called Billon. Jītal Copper was made equal to Billon Bronze.
® Forgery became rampant.
® Minting was not centralised.
® No secrecy maintained.
□ Billon mostly forged at home replaced billion issued by the state. Result - Good Billon and Bad Billon. In Market, Bad Billon replaced Good Billon. Market transaction crashed. Inter-regiinal trade flickered.
□ Solution of Mohammad Bin Tughlaq: Replaced all bad coins with Gold Coins - Treasury was empty.
3. Expedition of Khurāsan (1330-31)
□ West of the Indus River
□ Territory of Il-khanate
□ Tamarshirin (The Mongol)
□ Barani says: 37000 soldiers sent were paid in cash and in form of Iqtā. This expedition was disbanded and the expenses incurred in preparation never returned.
□ Ferishtā: Maliks (nobles) from Irāq and Khurāsan convinced Mohammad Bin Tughlaq to forgo the expedition. (But this is not believed to be true as Ferishtā was born centuries later).
□ Barani: Abandonment of plan happened because of friendly relations with Tamarshirin of Mohammad Bin Tughlaq. That compelled him to stop and give away Multān region to Tamarshirin (Loss of Multān)
4. Qarāchil Expedition (1337-39)
□ Qarāchil: Mid-Himālayān Range: Tract of Kullu Region in Kāngrā District in Kumāon
□ Geographically the expedition was not viable (winter)
□ Ferishtā: This expedition's ultimate aim was to take Tibet and China (this show's is bad understanding of geography). Because of security of North Western Frontier, consolidation in the region wa pivotal.
□ Barani: The commander of the expedition was Khusrao Malik under whom the soldiers panicked due to plague in the camp. Project failed in execution.
5. Doāb Experiment (1335 onwards)
□ Objectives: To replenish the treasury because of all the previous losses. For that he increased the taxation to 50% (Kharaj) in Doāb for future. He issued Sondhar (Pre-harvest loans) in Doāb region.
□ Barani: In 1334, Doāb was hit by drought and famine, extended for 7 years.
□ Ibn Battutāh: He mentioned seeing Carts on Wheels (Talwandī). Proof that North West India had famine.
□ Barani: Sondhar issues in Bad Billon forged by Hindu Moneylenders with expected returns in Good Billon.
Project failed, Sondhar never came back.
 
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Should Malvi be considered as part of the Rajasthani language? Or Malayalam as part of Tamil? And should Tulu be its own language?

@PerhapsItsChondoLal would it be a good idea to count Assamese as part/a dialect of Bengali? Keeping in mind this is prior to nearly 7 centuries worth of linguistic divergence

Malvi can be made dialect of Rajasthani. Malayalam can be made dialect of Tamil.

Tulu and Assamese should be separate languages.
 
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@PerhapsItsChondoLal would it be a good idea to count Assamese as part/a dialect of Bengali? Keeping in mind this is prior to nearly 7 centuries worth of linguistic divergence
Yeah definitely not, considering culture is not just language - Assamese (the language) had diverged significantly from Bengali as well, as you said.
Also I don't want to get Bongol Kheda'd, lol.
 
I just posted about cotton in the SEA thread but it's applicable here to a larger degree:

Cotton is very sensitive to rainfall during some phases of its growing cycle, so historically it hasn't been grown in areas that don't have a dry season or have high average annual precipitation.
So I would be very careful about placing cotton in locations with tropical climate, especially in jungle locations.

Locations with tropical rainforest climate shouldn't have cotton at all. This only applies to Sri Lanka here, which doesn't have any cotton.
Locations with tropical monsoon climate and tropical savannah climate can grow cotton, but depending on the local conditions, it may be difficult or produce low yields.

My suggestion would be to only place cotton in locations with tropical climate if there are sources that show that cotton was grown in these locations. Otherwise, you can assume that it wasn't.
India has a plethora of locations with tropical climate that produce cotton and that's not necessarily wrong, but cotton growing areas in India do tend to avoid tropical climate.
I would focus on the tropical jungle locations which maybe shouldn't produce any cotton at all, except if there's sources for it.
 
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>
4. Qarāchil Expedition (1337-39)
□ Qarāchil: Mid-Himālayān Range: Tract of Kullu Region in Kāngrā District in Kumāon
□ Geographically the expedition was not viable (winter)
□ Ferishtā: This expedition's ultimate aim was to take Tibet and China (this show's is bad understanding of geography). Because of security of North Western Frontier, consolidation in the region wa pivotal.
□ Barani: The commander of the expedition was Khusrao Malik under whom the soldiers panicked due to plague in the camp. Project failed in execution.

Qarachil word does seem to be derived from the word Kurmanchal, ancient name of the Kumaon kingdom, also, Kangra is not in Kumaon. But regarding that, I fail to understand why Tughlaq's attacked Kumaon, because if they wanted to secure trade between India and Tibet, majority of it flowed through Garhwal region through Bhotiya merchants, which was disunited and easier than Kumaon to conquer?
 
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kafir should not change it was literally the name used until 1896 because the locals didnt convert till around that period and even today "kafarstan/kafirstan" is still used by many .
its an enforced name like the term slav that the norse gave to the ruthenian slaves or soudan that the arabs gave to songhais and nubians .
here its given to a culture because it was culture of none believers , the alternative names you gave are not culture names and they dont fit

Peristan is a vague name that refer to a wider region that engulf pre islamic highly mythologised area of hidoukush mountains so its not to be used here. its like a nickname . its like albion for britain or cathay for china .

Nouristan is a modern name that was given after the population converted as i said and it mean land of light since the term nour mean light in arabic .
so you want it to be a land of light already since 1337 ?
nouristanis btw are just a branch of the Kalash peoples of ancient Bactria and if they are called nouristani now its because they live in nouristan the land of light .
there is nothing called the culture of land of light as you propose
kalash also is not a culture but an ethnicity of peoples descendents from old bactria and they were one of many who got called kafirs because of their way of life / culture that was described that way for not being islamic.

i think you are messing up everything big time suggesting irrelevent names just because you think the term kafir is offensive.
maybe cease writing such big essays if you are going to write such big blunder mistakes you are literally misguiding the devs and confusing them this way.
So... the Kalash people shouldn't be included in the game? They have their own language, religion, culture, ethnic makeup. Is that not enough?
 
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i also heard that kafirstan have nothing to do with the term infidel and that even if its the case the locals were never annoyed about it . its not even close to the term berbers vs amazigh . the term berber is only used by foreigners but locals either say shlouh or amazigh.
here we only have kafirs as a name that describe the way of life of the many hindoukush peoples such as kalash who didnt convert till a century ago .
the suggested names of peristan and noursitan as i said are irrelevent and show extreme hypocrisy and bias and attempt of historical distortion because they feel offended in the place of the locals like the many wokes today who try to deform history just to provide justice to groups they assume they need their intervention and they already tried that in vic3 and ck3 too.
Bro, it has nothing to do with being woke, I am not woke and I want the Kalasha people represented correctly, just change Kafir to Kalasha and it's good. It's not political.