Hey, for modding purposes, I have been checking on the online maps of the Medieval Roman theme system, and I must say they are... diverse. Even if they show the same period. History may be my thing but an expert byzantologist, I am not. The period I am thinking of is the runup to the battle of Manzikert. What's your take? Here are some maps I already found.
This one is clearly the one used by Paradox, some notable features include Abydos being the Ducates being de-facto themes in the game, Boukellarion protruding to the east and the Optimatoi being basically just the area around Nicomedia, Kappadokia being verry narrow. And of course, this is a 1025 map, before the Romans took places like Edessa
A handdrawn one I found on tumblr, no clear date is given but my best bet is 1059. The detail is surprisngly high, with more cities and clearer boundaries... which differ quite heavily from the former map, particularily in Anatolia around Charsianon.
View attachment byzantine-theme-map-1059-en (1).jpg
And this one is one of many I found on https://lucius-note.net/. Looks almost identical to the 2nd map, with some differences in Abydos and the Georgian frontier. If these are more accurate than the 1st one, it would seem there are quite a lot of differences that could be made to base game to improve its historical accuracy. Hopefully this hasn't been extensively discussed elsewhere, as I found no such thread thus far. Would the game not benefit from a mod/patch that uses the 2nd or 3rd image as the de jure theme template? Any thoughts or more accurate resources to see?

This one is clearly the one used by Paradox, some notable features include Abydos being the Ducates being de-facto themes in the game, Boukellarion protruding to the east and the Optimatoi being basically just the area around Nicomedia, Kappadokia being verry narrow. And of course, this is a 1025 map, before the Romans took places like Edessa

A handdrawn one I found on tumblr, no clear date is given but my best bet is 1059. The detail is surprisngly high, with more cities and clearer boundaries... which differ quite heavily from the former map, particularily in Anatolia around Charsianon.
View attachment byzantine-theme-map-1059-en (1).jpg
And this one is one of many I found on https://lucius-note.net/. Looks almost identical to the 2nd map, with some differences in Abydos and the Georgian frontier. If these are more accurate than the 1st one, it would seem there are quite a lot of differences that could be made to base game to improve its historical accuracy. Hopefully this hasn't been extensively discussed elsewhere, as I found no such thread thus far. Would the game not benefit from a mod/patch that uses the 2nd or 3rd image as the de jure theme template? Any thoughts or more accurate resources to see?
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