Austria and Trent in 1.29

[PiterCoffer]

My suggestion is the following: in order not to buff Austria too much and add depth to it at the same time, it should be split into the various nations that were historically in the region in 1444 (Styria, Tirol, Trent and obviously Austria) AND also get a dev buff like the rest of the HRE.

In this thread I'd like to specifically talk about Trent, which should be an OPM bishopry in province 110. While not as important as Brandeburg or Bohemia, Trent was crucial in the counter-reformation and as a mediator between the pope and the emperor. It is also a country that already has an in-game province (110), so none must be added.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1) general situation, 2) name, culture and region, 3) starting situation in 1444, 4)bishops, 5)ideas, traditions and ambition 6) events and missions 7) sources

1)Trent as a country survived until 1803, when it was secularized by order of Napoleon, but for the last century and a half of the game it was a de facto march of Austria. The period in which Trent was most important and autonomous starts in 1514 with the appointment of Bernardo Clesio as a bishop and ends in 1658 with the death of bishop Carlo Emanuele Madruzzo. So in 1444 the country should be independent and not allied to anyone, between 1446 and 1658 it should be allied to Austria and then between 1659 and 1803 it should be a march of Austria.

2)While the italian dynamic name of the province (and also almost all the others) is ok, the german one is not appropriate: Südtirol is the area north of Trent, which is half in the Tirol province and half in the Trent province in the game, and since (considering the name of the province capital, the borders and the culture) the area represented is not actually Südtirol but instead Trentino, a more correct german name would be Welschtirol. The culture of the province should remain venetian (which should also be the nation's primary culture) and, since Trent didn't leave the HRE historically due to the strong bonds it had with Austria, it should remain in the southern Germany region and in the Tirol area (although both culturally and geographically it should be in the Italy region), this would mean 0 map changes necessary except the addition of the tag and the different german name

3)At the start of the game the bishop Aleksander Mazowieck, a promoter of tridentine autonomy from the neighbours, has just died and there are 2 pretenders: Benedetto da Trento (appointed by the pope) and Teobaldo von Wolkenstein (appointed by the council of Basel) and in 1446 this dispute was solved by appointing Georg Hack von Themeswald (backed by Austria) instead. I would represent this in-game by having this event fire: AN AUTHORITY MATTER: the pope and the council of Basel have appointed 2 different bishops and the emperor also wants to have a say, who should we follow? A) the pope is always right! (Benedetto da Trento becomes the new bishop, +1 yearly papal influence and -1 tolerance of the true faith for 10 years and Austria gains -100 opinion of Trent and a claim on the province), B) the authority of the council is indisputable! (Teobaldo von Wolkenstein becomes the new bishop, +2 tolerance of the true faith and -1 yearly papal influence for 10 years,the pope has -50 opinion of us and Austria has - 50 opinion of us and gets a claim on the province), C) the emperor is our only legitimate ruler (Georg Hack von Themeswald becomes the new bishop, the pope has -50 opinion of Trent and Austria has +100 opinion of Trent, Trent becomes a march of Austria). All ruler stats for this event should be random and the AI should always submit to the emperor.

4) The following are the rulers: (it's in italian but it should be understandable enough)

• Benedetto da Trento † (12 ottobre 1444 - 1446 dimesso)
• Giorgio Hack † (16 ottobre 1446 - 23 agosto 1465 deceduto)
• Giovanni Hinderbach † (12 maggio 1466 - 21 settembre 1486 deceduto)
• Udalrico Frundsberg † (11 luglio 1488 - 10 agosto 1493 deceduto)
• Udalrico di Liechtenstein † (20 agosto 1493 - 16 settembre 1505 deceduto)
• Giorgio Neideck † (25 settembre 1505 - 5 giugno 1514 deceduto)
• Bernardo Cles † (25 settembre 1514 - 30 luglio 1539 deceduto)
• Cristoforo Madruzzo † (5 agosto 1539 - 14 novembre 1567 dimesso)
• Ludovico Madruzzo † (14 novembre 1567 succeduto - 2 aprile 1600 deceduto)
• Carlo Gaudenzio Madruzzo † (2 aprile 1600 succeduto - 14 agosto 1629 deceduto)
• Carlo Emanuele Madruzzo † (14 agosto 1629 succeduto - 15 dicembre 1658 deceduto)
• Sigismondo Francesco d'Austria † (7 febbraio 1659 - 28 maggio 1665 dimesso)
• Ernesto Adalberto d'Harrach † (11 novembre 1665 - 25 ottobre 1667 deceduto)
• Sigismondo Alfonso Thun † (9 settembre 1668 - 2 febbraio 1677 deceduto)
• Francesco Alberti Poja † (3 ottobre 1678 - 4 febbraio 1689 deceduto)
• Giuseppe Vittorio Alberti di Enno † (10 dicembre 1691 - 31 dicembre 1695 deceduto)
• Giovanni Michele Spaur † (24 settembre 1696 - 22 aprile 1725 deceduto)
• Giovanni Benedetto Gentilotti † (9 settembre 1725 - 20 settembre 1725 deceduto)
• Antonio Domenico Wolkenstein † (8 aprile 1726 - 5 aprile 1730 deceduto)
• Domenico Antonio Thun † (22 novembre 1730 - 7 settembre 1758 deceduto)
• Francesco Felice Alberti di Enno † (7 settembre 1758 succeduto - 31 dicembre 1762 deceduto)
• Cristoforo Sizzo de Noris † (22 agosto 1763 - 13 giugno 1776 deceduto)
• Pietro Vigilio Thun † (16 settembre 1776 - 17 gennaio 1800 deceduto)
• Emanuele Maria Thun † (11 agosto 1800 - 9 ottobre 1818 deceduto)

the bishops Cristoforo Madruzzo (1539-1567) and especially Bernardo Cles (1514-1539) should have particularly high stats: they both were important cardinals (Cles almost became pope) who covered many of the most important roles in the austrian court (e.g. Cles was, amongst other things, in charge of the austrian secret council and magnus cancellarius of the empire), they were highly involved in international politics (Cles for example partecipated in the election of Charles V and crowned his brother king of Bohemia, emperor Maximilian was also crowned in Trent and had a bond with the city and its bishops) and they introduced the renaissance to the area and organized the council of Trent thanks to the influence they had both on the pope and on the emperor.

5) Trent's traditions should be: between pope and emperor (+1 diplomatic reputation) and between Italy and Germany (+1 accepted culture). The ambition should be +1 tolerance of the true faith.
The ideas should be:
- Codex Vangianus (+10% goods produced modifier)
- intricate web of relations (+1 diplomatic relation)
- Mountain defenses (+20% fort defense)
- Alpine passes (+15% caravan power)
- Landlibell (+10% national manpower modifier)
- The countil of Trent (+1 yearly prestige)
- A peaceful place (-1 national unrest)

6) I'll add specific events and missions later probably, but they are not urgently needed. I think I'll just add a couple of missions like: "organize the council of Trent", " friends of both pope and emperor" and "old bonds with Bohemia" and a few events for the few relatively important people and things that had something to do with Trent (I'd make it so that the already existing event "the council of Trent" gives +3 dev to the Trent province for example).

7) Sources:

- on Bernardo Cles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardo_Clesio
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/bernardo-cles_(Dizionario-Biografico)/
- on Cristoforo Madruzzo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristoforo_Madruzzo
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/cristoforo-madruzzo/
- on the situation in 1444
http://www.santapollinare.tn.it/benedetto-da-trento.html
- on the bishop list (unfortunately the names are sometimes in italian and sometimes in german form)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Archdiocese_of_Trento
- on the bishopry in general (very simplistic view but it gives the general idea, the other links are here to fill the holes this one has since it's a wikipedia article)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishopric_of_Trent
- on the council of Trent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Trent
- on the Landlibell
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landlibell
- on the codex Vangianus
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Vangianus


Let me know what you think of this relatively unimportant suggestion.

 

[neondt]

After the last dev diary about the HRE I was left a bit disappointed that only minor nations will get a buff, while Austria will be left almost untouched.

Nowhere did I say either of these things. I would strongly advise against drawing conclusions about future content based on things I did not specifically cover in a highly speculative dev diary. Austria, as with most of Germany, will have more provinces.

 

[PiterCoffer]

Nowhere did I say either of these things. I would strongly advise against drawing conclusions about future content based on things I did not specifically cover in a highly speculative dev diary. Austria, as with most of Germany, will have more provinces.

I am happy to see I misunderstood the dev diary and that you took your time to answer me about this and to read this thread.
I will proceed to eliminate that part of the thread since it might be misleading to others who read.
I hope you found the rest of this thread useful for the changes you maybe have in mind for the area

 

[Malecord]

As a guy born in the used to Bishopric of Trent, I honestly find it hard to model Trent as an opm in EU4 in a way that is more historically accurate than it is now (i.e. an Austria province allocated to the clergy estate). The truth is that the golden days of the Bishopric were already gone in 1444 and that during all the duration of EU4 timeline the whole institution survived only because the Habsburgs had obviously a soft spot for HRE institutions. But it is wrong to claim that Trent survived as independent country until HRE dissolution. It was already much integrated in the County in 1444 and the process continued later.

Trent had its golden age immediately after being detached from Bavaria and made an independent an HRE principality under its Bishop (which was elevated to the rank of Imperial Prince in the process). Which is 1024. The 2 centuries that followed it had its maximum extension -present day Trentino plus large parts of present day Sud Tirol and Ost Tyrol and even small parts of Graubunden- and a disproportionate power considered its "development", largely due to its strategic position. It was vital for the emperors to maintain the passage between the northen side of HRE and south HRE free so they could move from one side of the alps to teh other and keep their princes at bay. That was the reason Trent was made independent by Henry II in the first place: the Bishop charge cannot be inherited, instead the emperor rightfully appoints them (unless you're think like Guelph ofc ).

Bishops however were not allowed to dispose of the life of other Christians thus they had to delegate a subject for military and justice affairs. That is why they used to nominate a local noble "Vogt" so they could do it in their place. I remember that the first Vogt was a noble of the Flavon family from the Non valley (one of the largest valleys in the province). Later though it was the Tyrol that became permanently Vogt. First of Trent alone and later of Brixen as well.,They used this power to expand in what in the game is in North Tyrol until they grew so large in power that basically by 1300 they were already de facto the overlords and the Bishops their vassals.
Now what happened in that period is a messy / interesting story depending on how much love history (I think Tirol/Trent history is like the perfect script for a CKII game), but when 1363 Habsburgs inherited the County for the Bishops it was basically game over: their legal right to be recognized as the rightful overlords of the Tirol Counts was based on them being HRE princes, thus direct vassals of the emperor. But now since the Habsburgs were Tirol Counts and Emperors at the same time, this argument was made void. Any hope chance was gone, though in its whole history nothing actually suggests that Trent ever sought independence but rather autonomy. Which it had in fairly large amount until Napoleon killed the HRE and by spreading nationalism and centralism all over Europe made made impossible to justify the existence of Church estates anymore.

So how can you model in game an opm with very limited army control and largely integrated with its overlord? Before EU4 timeline it's a fact that Trent and Tirol were historically two rival powers fighting for the control of the same province and people, with alternating vassal/suzerain relationship and different legal rights to justify their claims. Maybe if history went differently we would have even seen some actual armed conflict down the line. But since history is that by 1363 the Habsurgs were the Counts of Tirol the matter was settled: either by Tirol or Trent argument, in the end it was all Habsburg land.

Also keep in mind that the situation at that time in the present day Trentino province itself was very irregular and hardly made of neat borders. Some families were aligned with the County others with the Bishopric. In Non Valley for instance the Thun (from Ton - they germanized their originally ladin name, no relation with swiss Thun) were originally aligned with the Bishops. North of them and on the other side the Spaur (from Spor, again a ladin name they germanized to better fare with the rest of the empire) aligned with the Counts. Northern again the Cles (from.. well Cles. Curiously they actually often italianized their name like Bernardo Clesio did in order to pose better as natural ambassadors toward the italian parts of the HRE) aligned with the Bishops again. And so on. It is true that with the brilliant moves of Bernardo Clesio who made the counter reformation happen in Trent the Bishopric prestige saw a resurgence. In your list of Bishops you will see from the names that after him the charge has been permanently given to members of the local noble families whereas before Bishops came mostly from the northern parts of the empire. But even then that happened as Trent happened as an integrated part of Austria, i.e. by Clesio becoming close to the emperor whilst cultivating connections in the Italian clergy at the same time, as you reminded (and that was helpful I guess, since Gaysmar revolt happened around that time). Another example: take also the latest Bishops, the Thuns. In 1600 century they were also very close to Vienna. A branch of their family was granted large estates in Bohemia. If you google you will see UK and Italian embassies in Prague occupy their former palaces. All these serves as evidence of South Tirol being strictly integrated in Austria feudal mechanics rather than as an independent polity. A Clergy estate works better as a representation.

The only reasonable way I can think of making Trent independent is by event: if the Austria loses HRE throne before 1550, the new emperor can restore the bishop-prince and Tirol loses the core in the province in the process. Ofc this will produce a lot of bad opinion with Austria and possibly other states that own former Prince- Bishopric lands in the rest of Germany. Also keep in mind that Bavaria was the original owner of that land before Tirol, before the Bishops and before the Trent dukes as well. They never really gave it up and when they allied with Napoleon they obtained to occupy Tirol (and then you have the 3 popular insurrections under Andres Hofer lead). I mean if I were a Von Wittelsbach I would also be upset if that land was made independent again instead of restored to me. But even so, apart from historical flavor, I fail to see what it would actually lead to in the game. A mischief against Austria. But after that? Trent would just become contested between Austria/Tirol and Venice powers, and if not Venice, Milan. It has very little options to expand itself, no natural allies and as a bishopric it cannot be made a free city. Unless the promised HRE rework has something in store for Prince-Bishophrics too. Then it could be interesting.

2)While the italian dynamic name of the province (and also almost all the others) is ok, the german one is not appropriate: Südtirol is the area north of Trent, which is half in the Tirol province and half in the Trent province in the game, and since (considering the name of the province capital, the borders and the culture) the area represented is not actually Südtirol but instead Trentino, a more correct german name would be Welschtirol.

Actually I disagree with this one as well. Historically Tirol was already the name of the whole area under Tirol authority, directly or indirectly. Which includes present day Sud Tirol (today Italy, where the actual Tirol village is located, which gave the name to everything), Tirol (today in Austria, where the capital has been moved in 1429) and Trentino (Italia again, where the Bishops had their large estates). Since the region is geographically vast and it has a pass in the middle, it make sense to split it in two and thus north and south are the obvious choices here. But they are not to be confused with the present day names which originates from the sundering of the County in WW1. Before WW1 the only usage of the expressions "Sud Tirol/Sud Tirolo" and "Welsh Tirol/Tirolo Italiano" you would find it postcards and some lingustic maps is to indicate only the area of present day Trentino where people spoke ladin/italian and where in general Italian was used in school after Maria Theresa reform made school compulsory. But nobody in Meran or Brixen or Tirol too would had said to live in Sud Tirol. They were the heart of Tirol. Trent people instead did say to live in Sud Tirolo. So, partly because there is already a north half somewhere and partly because there used to be a Sud Tirolo in use to indicate the italian speaking half of that province, in my opinion it makes sense to keep it as it is.

Then once put under Italian polity hands... I honestly dunno why it should become anything different than Sud Tirolo and Nord Tirolo. Sure one could use Trent just to stress the supremacy of the Bishops over the County. But really if you are a conqueror, let's say Venice, do you really care to underline that you stole the province from someone who was already stolen of it before? Does it really make you look better diplomatically or towards your new subjects there? "Hei look! I stole you from the Bishops, the guy in charge before, not the Counts. Don't hate me!". The cultural tag may say venetian, but that it is not really people that immigrated from Venice. Most probably it's people that never saw the sea in the first place. Imho they would get 10 years of separatism anyhow you decide to call the place. :S
That being said I must say that personally I find amusing now when the place is renamed Trent since Trent is actually the name of the city in all the local dialects (which only by pure chance is also the name in English: it's "Trento" in italian and "Trient" in german). I'm sure it's completely unintentional but still it's cool.
What I find out of place instead are both Trentino and Alto Adige. They totally sounds out of context here. It reminds partly of the Jacobins and their obsession in deleting any trace of history by giving invented names and partly of the forced italianization. Both very real things... but since they occurred after the game timeline, they kind of ruin the magic of EU4 in my opinion.

The culture of the province should remain venetian (which should also be the nation's primary culture)

As I wrote in other threads I vote for proper tirolean culture. It's impossible to summarize the variety of different languages and influences of that place unless you create a dedicated cultural group there. Sure: Austrian can work, they were always friends. Bavarian too. They used to own the place and they were rival. Venetian, again rivals, they never went far with conquest but they had a strong linguistic influence in the actual Trent city. All true in a sense and wrong in another. In the end whatever you chose will not capture the entirety of the thing linguistically wise. With Venetian you get present day Trento dialect fairly right, but you miss the whole ladin countryside and the Germany speaking majority especially in 1444. With Austrian you stress how well the people was integrate and good willing toward the Habsburg, but you don't represent the linguistic peculiarities.
Yet since regardless of the spoken language there was uniformity in customs and traditions in the whole County a dedicated cultural group would not be wrong, as it is for the other Alpine tag of the game, the Swiss.

and, since Trent didn't leave the HRE historically due to the strong bonds it had with Austria, it should remain in the southern Germany region and in the Tirol area (although both culturally and geographically it should be in the Italy region), this would mean 0 map changes necessary except the addition of the tag and the different german name

Actually the majority of Italian provinces never officially left the empire until way later in history. The whole shadow kingdom thing is just an artificial game event with no historical ground that is necessary to open Italy to foreign conquest without crippling the imperial authority under the current HRE rules. It gives the emperor the chance to focus on Germany and let Italy slip away without suffering any penalty. When they rework the HRE I hope they find a way to make this work that is more historically accurate. The rest I agree.

 

[Pbhuh]

Personally I think the devs should do another Dev diary about the hre and their plans and design. @neond.

There have been many suggestions, small ones like splitting up Sud tirol and huge ones. I don't think the addition of more OPMs is bad for the game, I think especially Germany and Italy need to be home to many of them.

Just looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian Circle we can see the different entities that were allowed to vote, while some are really too small, I'd personally like effort being put in to represent at least most counties and princebishoprics as provinces, while this is of course impossible, there should be a general effort into looking for huge provinces to split up and important historical actors and provinces to add to the game.

Trent is one of them.

 

[PiterCoffer]

As a guy born in the used to Bishopric of Trent, I honestly find it hard to model Trent as an opm in EU4 in a way that is more historically accurate than it is now (i.e. an Austria province allocated to the clergy estate). The truth is that the golden days of the Bishopric were already gone in 1444 and that during all the duration of EU4 timeline the whole institution survived only because the Habsburgs had obviously a soft spot for HRE institutions. But it is wrong to claim that Trent survived as independent country until HRE dissolution. It was already much integrated in the County in 1444 and the process continued later.

Trent had its golden age immediately after being detached from Bavaria and made an independent an HRE principality under its Bishop (which was elevated to the rank of Imperial Prince in the process). Which is 1024. The 2 centuries that followed it had its maximum extension -present day Trentino plus large parts of present day Sud Tirol and Ost Tyrol and even small parts of Graubunden- and a disproportionate power considered its "development", largely due to its strategic position. It was vital for the emperors to maintain the passage between the northen side of HRE and south HRE free so they could move from one side of the alps to teh other and keep their princes at bay. That was the reason Trent was made independent by Henry II in the first place: the Bishop charge cannot be inherited, instead the emperor rightfully appoints them (unless you're think like Guelph ofc ).

Bishops however were not allowed to dispose of the life of other Christians thus they had to delegate a subject for military and justice affairs. That is why they used to nominate a local noble "Vogt" so they could do it in their place. I remember that the first Vogt was a noble of the Flavon family from the Non valley (one of the largest valleys in the province). Later though it was the Tyrol that became permanently Vogt. First of Trent alone and later of Brixen as well.,They used this power to expand in what in the game is in North Tyrol until they grew so large in power that basically by 1300 they were already de facto the overlords and the Bishops their vassals.
Now what happened in that period is a messy / interesting story depending on how much love history (I think Tirol/Trent history is like the perfect script for a CKII game), but when 1363 Habsburgs inherited the County for the Bishops it was basically game over: their legal right to be recognized as the rightful overlords of the Tirol Counts was based on them being HRE princes, thus direct vassals of the emperor. But now since the Habsburgs were Tirol Counts and Emperors at the same time, this argument was made void. Any hope chance was gone, though in its whole history nothing actually suggests that Trent ever sought independence but rather autonomy. Which it had in fairly large amount until Napoleon killed the HRE and by spreading nationalism and centralism all over Europe made made impossible to justify the existence of Church estates anymore.

So how can you model in game an opm with very limited army control and largely integrated with its overlord? Before EU4 timeline it's a fact that Trent and Tirol were historically two rival powers fighting for the control of the same province and people, with alternating vassal/suzerain relationship and different legal rights to justify their claims. Maybe if history went differently we would have even seen some actual armed conflict down the line. But since history is that by 1363 the Habsurgs were the Counts of Tirol the matter was settled: either by Tirol or Trent argument, in the end it was all Habsburg land.

Also keep in mind that the situation at that time in the present day Trentino province itself was very irregular and hardly made of neat borders. Some families were aligned with the County others with the Bishopric. In Non Valley for instance the Thun (from Ton - they germanized their originally ladin name, no relation with swiss Thun) were originally aligned with the Bishops. North of them and on the other side the Spaur (from Spor, again a ladin name they germanized to better fare with the rest of the empire) aligned with the Counts. Northern again the Cles (from.. well Cles. Curiously they actually often italianized their name like Bernardo Clesio did in order to pose better as natural ambassadors toward the italian parts of the HRE) aligned with the Bishops again. And so on. It is true that with the brilliant moves of Bernardo Clesio who made the counter reformation happen in Trent the Bishopric prestige saw a resurgence. In your list of Bishops you will see from the names that after him the charge has been permanently given to members of the local noble families whereas before Bishops came mostly from the northern parts of the empire. But even then that happened as Trent happened as an integrated part of Austria, i.e. by Clesio becoming close to the emperor whilst cultivating connections in the Italian clergy at the same time, as you reminded (and that was helpful I guess, since Gaysmar revolt happened around that time). Another example: take also the latest Bishops, the Thuns. In 1600 century they were also very close to Vienna. A branch of their family was granted large estates in Bohemia. If you google you will see UK and Italian embassies in Prague occupy their former palaces. All these serves as evidence of South Tirol being strictly integrated in Austria feudal mechanics rather than as an independent polity. A Clergy estate works better as a representation.

The only reasonable way I can think of making Trent independent is by event: if the Austria loses HRE throne before 1550, the new emperor can restore the bishop-prince and Tirol loses the core in the province in the process. Ofc this will produce a lot of bad opinion with Austria and possibly other states that own former Prince- Bishopric lands in the rest of Germany. Also keep in mind that Bavaria was the original owner of that land before Tirol, before the Bishops and before the Trent dukes as well. They never really gave it up and when they allied with Napoleon they obtained to occupy Tirol (and then you have the 3 popular insurrections under Andres Hofer lead). I mean if I were a Von Wittelsbach I would also be upset if that land was made independent again instead of restored to me. But even so, apart from historical flavor, I fail to see what it would actually lead to in the game. A mischief against Austria. But after that? Trent would just become contested between Austria/Tirol and Venice powers, and if not Venice, Milan. It has very little options to expand itself, no natural allies and as a bishopric it cannot be made a free city. Unless the promised HRE rework has something in store for Prince-Bishophrics too. Then it could be interesting.



Actually I disagree with this one as well. Historically Tirol was already the name of the whole area under Tirol authority, directly or indirectly. Which includes present day Sud Tirol (today Italy, where the actual Tirol village is located, which gave the name to everything), Tirol (today in Austria, where the capital has been moved in 1429) and Trentino (Italia again, where the Bishops had their large estates). Since the region is geographically vast and it has a pass in the middle, it make sense to split it in two and thus north and south are the obvious choices here. But they are not to be confused with the present day names which originates from the sundering of the County in WW1. Before WW1 the only usage of the expressions "Sud Tirol/Sud Tirolo" and "Welsh Tirol/Tirolo Italiano" you would find it postcards and some lingustic maps is to indicate only the area of present day Trentino where people spoke ladin/italian and where in general Italian was used in school after Maria Theresa reform made school compulsory. But nobody in Meran or Brixen or Tirol too would had said to live in Sud Tirol. They were the heart of Tirol. Trent people instead did say to live in Sud Tirolo. So, partly because there is already a north half somewhere and partly because there used to be a Sud Tirolo in use to indicate the italian speaking half of that province, in my opinion it makes sense to keep it as it is.

Then once put under Italian polity hands... I honestly dunno why it should become anything different than Sud Tirolo and Nord Tirolo. Sure one could use Trent just to stress the supremacy of the Bishops over the County. But really if you are a conqueror, let's say Venice, do you really care to underline that you stole the province from someone who was already stolen of it before? Does it really make you look better diplomatically or towards your new subjects there? "Hei look! I stole you from the Bishops, the guy in charge before, not the Counts. Don't hate me!". The cultural tag may say venetian, but that it is not really people that immigrated from Venice. Most probably it's people that never saw the sea in the first place. Imho they would get 10 years of separatism anyhow you decide to call the place. :S
That being said I must say that personally I find amusing now when the place is renamed Trent since Trent is actually the name of the city in all the local dialects (which only by pure chance is also the name in English: it's "Trento" in italian and "Trient" in german). I'm sure it's completely unintentional but still it's cool.
What I find out of place instead are both Trentino and Alto Adige. They totally sounds out of context here. It reminds partly of the Jacobins and their obsession in deleting any trace of history by giving invented names and partly of the forced italianization. Both very real things... but since they occurred after the game timeline, they kind of ruin the magic of EU4 in my opinion.



As I wrote in other threads I vote for proper tirolean culture. It's impossible to summarize the variety of different languages and influences of that place unless you create a dedicated cultural group there. Sure: Austrian can work, they were always friends. Bavarian too. They used to own the place and they were rival. Venetian, again rivals, they never went far with conquest but they had a strong linguistic influence in the actual Trent city. All true in a sense and wrong in another. In the end whatever you chose will not capture the entirety of the thing linguistically wise. With Venetian you get present day Trento dialect fairly right, but you miss the whole ladin countryside and the Germany speaking majority especially in 1444. With Austrian you stress how well the people was integrate and good willing toward the Habsburg, but you don't represent the linguistic peculiarities.
Yet since regardless of the spoken language there was uniformity in customs and traditions in the whole County a dedicated cultural group would not be wrong, as it is for the other Alpine tag of the game, the Swiss.


Actually the majority of Italian provinces never officially left the empire until way later in history. The whole shadow kingdom thing is just an artificial game event with no historical ground that is necessary to open Italy to foreign conquest without crippling the imperial authority under the current HRE rules. It gives the emperor the chance to focus on Germany and let Italy slip away without suffering any penalty. When they rework the HRE I hope they find a way to make this work that is more historically accurate. The rest I agree.

I agree with some points you made, but not all: a tirolean culture makes no sense in my opinion in such a diverse context, I think the provinces' cultures should only represent the linguistic majority, because it becomes impossible to define cultural borders if you speak of culture as a whole (if you ever studied anthropology you know what I mean), so a specific criteria has to be chosen and to me it seems it is language. In addition you currently can't represent minorities at all, so the ladins have to be cut out unfortunately.

Also I find the name südtirol confusing for all those who are not well informed about the exact history of the game, and since at the end of the game Welschtirol was also used, I think it would be better to use that in my opinion. Can you please give me a source that proves nowadays Trentino was called südtirol or sud tirolo? Also the name Trent makes more sense because it is based on the "capital" of the province and the name of the diocese, not because it is tied to the bishopry.

In regards to the independence of Trent I must say that, although it is true the bishopry had some limitations in power, that it was always recognized as a HRE nation: it had a vote in the imperial diet and it had diplomatic ties and pacts with other countries (the landlibell for example assured that the bishops would not further lose territory to austria, so it should at least be a march). As I explained at the beginning, in 1444 a polish bishops who tried his whole life to free the small country from the austrian influence has just died and Austria does not directly choose its successor: the pope also wants to have a say and at the start of the game it is "his" bishop and not Austria's that holds power in Trent and there is a debate about the succession, considering this the least you can do is show Trent as a vassal with high liberty desire, and in my opinion it is even better to make it start with the event that I described in the original thread (and maybe make so that if you choose the option to side with austria in the succession you become its vassal and make the AI always choose that). Even after 1446 the country still continued to have its own laws and army (Cles for example hired 15000 swiss pikemen for a period, there was no permanent army of course) and from Cles onwards the bishopry became even more "autonomous" (Austria didn't choose the bishops again for over a century), so I think that until the Madruzzos are in power it should start as independent (maybe allied to Austria or having Austria grant their independence). Afterwards it is fine by me if they are a march (a vassal wouldn't do due to the landlibell and the fact the bishopry lasted until 1803). You mention many limitations to the power of the bishops, but it has to be noted that it was an issue common to all the bishopries of the HRE (they all needed advocates and the appointment of the bishops was often contended between foreign powers in all of them), so that is not a good reason not to include Trent in the game unless you remove most bishopries (maybe only letting the electors stand).

So considering that Trent in 1444 was de iure a country and it wasn't even ruled by an austrian or an austrophile but by a supporter of the pope, it retained most of its rights (vote in the diet, administration etc.), and it tried multiple times to befriend Venice and other powers to counter austrian influence, I think the country should start either as a vassal/march with 100% liberty desire or as an independent country that can become a vassal/march of Austria by the event I previously described. Then again it has to be considered that eu4 is an abstraction and that the names "vassal" and "march" are sometimes vague and it is difficult to understand wheather a country was one or not, that is why I am open to both for Trent (although I think the latter is more accurate with the event), but what I am sure of is that Trent was not a part of Austria in 1444 but instead a separate country, otherwise you could also say Aragon was a part of Castile right after the iberian wedding, and we both know that wasn't the case).

By the way I am from Trent too, that's why I'm one of the only 2 guys who care a bit about this XD.

 

[Malecord]

I agree with some points you made, but not all: a tirolean culture makes no sense in my opinion in such a diverse context, I think the provinces' cultures should only represent the linguistic majority, because it becomes impossible to define cultural borders if you speak of culture as a whole (if you ever studied anthropology you know what I mean), so a specific criteria has to be chosen and to me it seems it is language. In addition you currently can't represent minorities at all, so the ladins have to be cut out unfortunately.

Personally I believe cultural borders are a lie as much as language borders. People mix together, people move and people learn new languages and habits. Draw a line on a map either by language or customs and you get something right and something else wrong. Imho there are no black and white borders, just shades of grey. And that's why I value autonomy: the history of my birthland teaches me that thousand years of harmony and peaceful coexistence can be ruined by nationalism and centralism. Then yeah, I didn't study anthropology. But I've got eyes. And clearly, if you look an old village in Veneto, an old village in Trentino and an old village in Austrian Tirol, even today after all the work done to cancel traces of the past, is pretty clear where the similarities are. So, in this specific case, where history explains what language doesn't, a Tirolean culture group can do a better job at representing what is there. Then I know that as everything else it will approximate something wrong. But at least I won't see any more venetian independentists spawn in Trent. If you're from the main city you should especially feel the pain by seeing your ancestor taking arms to ask annexation to Venice.
Regardless, jokes aside, know that if we follow the criteria to just represent the largest linguistic group then the result is not what you might expect. You should know that until before annexation and before Hitler-Mussolini Option, the majority of the people in the region were German speaking. So unless PDX really splits up the present day Sud Tirol province in two smaller provinces and assign the southern Venetian, by going purely with linguistic majority Austrian culture it is. Especially in 1444 when Trent was still multi lingual and the "natural italianization" process was still under way.

Also I find the name südtirol confusing for all those who are not well informed about the exact history of the game, and since at the end of the game Welschtirol was also used, I think it would be better to use that in my opinion. Can you please give me a source that proves nowadays Trentino was called südtirol or sud tirolo? Also the name Trent makes more sense because it is based on the "capital" of the province and the name of the diocese, not because it is tied to the bishopry.

Well... EU4 is a game about history. If historical names confuse the player I'd say it's the player that has an issue not the game. Then, regarding the sources, I'm no collector of antiques. So I've just spent some minutes browsing the internet for libraries, antiques shops and auction houses seeing what if I could find out some picture of stuff similar to what I've seen. Just a plain google search for images. Not an history research.

https://imgur.com/a/UxiQcFw

I found nothing older than 1600 and postcards and prints are ofc of the 1800. As far as I can tell by 1600 maps the bishopric is fully integrated in Tirol. We know it existed formally until the end of HRE but it's not independent enough to be considered alien to the county.
Then, as far as I can tell, for the second half of EU4 timeline the current North Tirol and Sud Tirol fit. I found no evidence -even in proper 1860 Italian Kingdom military literature- that present day "Trentino" was referred as anything different than "Tirolo". Which imho makes sense since as far as I know they started to fabricate claims on our land only around 1900. But I found at least one photo were "trentino" adjective was used in unsuspecting times i.e. during the visit of the emperor in pre war Trent after 1900. That doesn't help me understand however if trentino was in use as a proper name for the actual region but it shows that it was surely in use to characterize the city assets (trentino as a word more or less means "from/of/belonging to Trent"). Some mentions of Sud Tirol for the italian speaking lands which I expected. But I only found them in german postcards and a commercial in french. I didn't find anything in italiano.
So that doesn't change my idea that Nord Tirol / Nord Tirolo(Innsbruck-Austrian) and Sud Tirol/Sud Tirolo(Trent-Austrian) is the most historically accurate setup for the provinces currently in the game. Whilst if PDX is willing to split up sud tirol in 2 then it would make more sense to have Nord Tirol/Nord Tirolo(Innsbruck-Austrian), Tirol/Tirolo(Meran-Austrian) and Sud Tirol/Sud Tirolo(Trent-Venetian). And yeah: once a dedicated province is made, by all means it makes sense to have Trent as a vassal in 1444 and let tirol/austria integrate it in the early years of the game. But for me, just my opinion, without splitting the province in 2, in 1444 imho the Bishopric influence is not large enough to grant it control to all of sud tirol so the current EU4 implementation is a better approximation.

By the way I am from Trent too, that's why I'm one of the only 2 guys who care a bit about this XD.

Yeah I guess so. And probably other users will find funny that we're so confused about the actual name in use for our places just one century ago when we can just go out in a square and read it from an inscription under any statue or landmark. Well the issue is we don't have this stuff anymore even in Trentino. So yeah... I guess we are confused.

Anyway I'll try to google again for some other material. Maybe I can find also some Welshtirol/Tirolo Italiano reference as well. I know old people used to say that was the name. But now they're all gone and I never saw any material that proved that. This revamped my curiosity on the subject.

 

[PiterCoffer]

Personally I believe cultural borders are a lie as much as language borders. People mix together, people move and people learn new languages and habits. Draw a line on a map either by language or customs and you get something right and something else wrong. Imho there are no black and white borders, just shades of grey. And that's why I value autonomy: the history of my birthland teaches me that thousand years of harmony and peaceful coexistence can be ruined by nationalism and centralism. Then yeah, I didn't study anthropology. But I've got eyes. And clearly, if you look an old village in Veneto, an old village in Trentino and an old village in Austrian Tirol, even today after all the work done to cancel traces of the past, is pretty clear where the similarities are. So, in this specific case, where history explains what language doesn't, a Tirolean culture group can do a better job at representing what is there. Then I know that as everything else it will approximate something wrong. But at least I won't see any more venetian independentists spawn in Trent. If you're from the main city you should especially feel the pain by seeing your ancestor taking arms to ask annexation to Venice.
Regardless, jokes aside, know that if we follow the criteria to just represent the largest linguistic group then the result is not what you might expect. You should know that until before annexation and before Hitler-Mussolini Option, the majority of the people in the region were German speaking. So unless PDX really splits up the present day Sud Tirol province in two smaller provinces and assign the southern Venetian, by going purely with linguistic majority Austrian culture it is. Especially in 1444 when Trent was still multi lingual and the "natural italianization" process was still under way.




Well... EU4 is a game about history. If historical names confuse the player I'd say it's the player that has an issue not the game. Then, regarding the sources, I'm no collector of antiques. So I've just spent some minutes browsing the internet for libraries, antiques shops and auction houses seeing what if I could find out some picture of stuff similar to what I've seen. Just a plain google search for images. Not an history research.

https://imgur.com/a/UxiQcFw

I found nothing older than 1600 and postcards and prints are ofc of the 1800. As far as I can tell by 1600 maps the bishopric is fully integrated in Tirol. We know it existed formally until the end of HRE but it's not independent enough to be considered alien to the county.
Then, as far as I can tell, for the second half of EU4 timeline the current North Tirol and Sud Tirol fit. I found no evidence -even in proper 1860 Italian Kingdom military literature- that present day "Trentino" was referred as anything different than "Tirolo". Which imho makes sense since as far as I know they started to fabricate claims on our land only around 1900. But I found at least one photo were "trentino" adjective was used in unsuspecting times i.e. during the visit of the emperor in pre war Trent after 1900. That doesn't help me understand however if trentino was in use as a proper name for the actual region but it shows that it was surely in use to characterize the city assets (trentino as a word more or less means "from/of/belonging to Trent"). Some mentions of Sud Tirol for the italian speaking lands which I expected. But I only found them in german postcards and a commercial in french. I didn't find anything in italiano.
So that doesn't change my idea that Nord Tirol / Nord Tirolo(Innsbruck-Austrian) and Sud Tirol/Sud Tirolo(Trent-Austrian) is the most historically accurate setup for the provinces currently in the game. Whilst if PDX is willing to split up sud tirol in 2 then it would make more sense to have Nord Tirol/Nord Tirolo(Innsbruck-Austrian), Tirol/Tirolo(Meran-Austrian) and Sud Tirol/Sud Tirolo(Trent-Venetian). And yeah: once a dedicated province is made, by all means it makes sense to have Trent as a vassal in 1444 and let tirol/austria integrate it in the early years of the game. But for me, just my opinion, without splitting the province in 2, in 1444 imho the Bishopric influence is not large enough to grant it control to all of sud tirol so the current EU4 implementation is a better approximation.



Yeah I guess so. And probably other users will find funny that we're so confused about the actual name in use for our places just one century ago when we can just go out in a square and read it from an inscription under any statue or landmark. Well the issue is we don't have this stuff anymore even in Trentino. So yeah... I guess we are confused.

Anyway I'll try to google again for some other material. Maybe I can find also some Welshtirol/Tirolo Italiano reference as well. I know old people used to say that was the name. But now they're all gone and I never saw any material that proved that. This revamped my curiosity on the subject.

It seems we have different opinions on some of this things (especially the name of the province), but I think you misunderstood my point about culture: what I was trying to say is that culture is composed of many factors and it constantly changes in both time and space, so trying to define the borders of a culture is only possible if you only consider one side of it and in a broad sense, and I think paradox chose language because it's the most easily identifiable and factor and also the most used in the last century. Therefore, although it is not a perfect method we have to use that here too in order to "define" a province's culture, and in this case I think it should be venetian or lombard (I think there were never more austrian speaking people than italian speaking ones in the province: even at the end of the austrian rule during the first world war austrians and germans were very small minorities, and being under Austria for so long would logically bring more austrians, not less. I myself, although it is just a single case, checked my family for example and my ancestors all had italian names even back in the 17th century (all from trentino). Correct me if I am wrong, but I have never heard of a diaspora or anything like that in which lots of germans suddently left the region, so I think there never were that many ti begin with. Of course there is a part of modern day südtirol in the in game südtirol province too, but it's not so big to represent the majority of the population. Also you say it doesn'make sense for venetian separatists to spawn there and that is true, but Austrian ones wouldn't make more sense since the inhabitants had never been under Austria before 1444.

Regarding the independence and the event to become a vassal I think I have already elaborated enough in the last messages, especially about the starting situation. How can it be a vassal of Austria if the starting bishop in 1444 was appointed by the pope and followed the reign of a bishop that hated Austria? The only realistic alternative to having it start independent and have the event to make it a vassal at the start of the game is to have it be a vassal of austria with very high liberty desire.

It was nice to have this exchange of opinions anyway. May I ask you where you are from in the province?

 

[Malecord]

It seems we have different opinions on some of this things (especially the name of the province),

I found the definitive geographical reference I think:

"Suso in Italia bella giace un laco,
a piè de l’Alpe che serra Lamagna
sovra Tiralli, c’ha nome Benaco."

Divina Commedia, Inferno Canto XX, 60-63

roughly translated: "In north Italy there is lake next to Tirol called Garda, at the foot of the Alps that separate Germany."

I was back to my parents last week and it came to my mind that Dante visited some places there. Ofc he had to write something geographical in the Commedia so I googled.

and I think paradox chose language because it's the most easily identifiable and factor and also the most used in the last century. Therefore, although it is not a perfect method we have to use that here too in order to "define" a province's culture, and in this case I think it should be venetian or lombard (I think there were never more austrian speaking people than italian speaking ones in the province: even at the end of the austrian rule during the first world war austrians and germans were very small minorities, and being under Austria for so long would logically bring more austrians, not less. I myself, although it is just a single case, checked my family for example and my ancestors all had italian names even back in the 17th century (all from trentino). Correct me if I am wrong, but I have never heard of a diaspora or anything like that in which lots of germans suddently left the region, so I think there never were that many ti begin with. Of course there is a part of modern day südtirol in the in game südtirol province too, but it's not so big to represent the majority of the population. Also you say it doesn'make sense for venetian separatists to spawn there and that is true, but Austrian ones wouldn't make more sense since the inhabitants had never been under Austria before 1444.

Apart from the Lombard themselves which established the Trent duchy long before these events, the later German speaking people that settled in present day Trentino were mostly Bavarian colonizers from the period when the duchy remained under Bavarian authority (the march of Verona affair, before the Bishopric was established and way before Tirol was carved out of the Bishopric). They slowly integrated and started talking local dialect as a natural process, I'm not arguing on the predominant Italian influence on the spoken language in Welshtirol. It's called like that for a reason. I was arguing on the choice before the split the province in the 2 linguistic areas was announced. With the coming changes I agree venetian is a good compromise: even Venetian is kind of funny in mountain area, I know we can't have 1 culture per province.

Regarding the independence and the event to become a vassal I think I have already elaborated enough in the last messages, especially about the starting situation. How can it be a vassal of Austria if the starting bishop in 1444 was appointed by the pope and followed the reign of a bishop that hated Austria? The only realistic alternative to having it start independent and have the event to make it a vassal at the start of the game is to have it be a vassal of austria with very high liberty desire.

In fact the bishop weren't vassals of Austria. They were however at a certain degree subjects of the Tirol counts (which due to Habsburgs mechanics then became also Archdukes Austria or viceversa). It's true that many Bishops tried to increase the autonomy of the Bishopric, and some succeeded for a limited extent like you remembered. But as far as I know never, after the Gorz counts constituted Tirol as a single entity in 1253, the advocacy of the Bishopric has been revoked/overthrown. I'm not arguing that the Counts and Bishops were always good friends. They obviously weren't given that the former got their fortunes by usurping lands that used to be of the latter. The Bishops had arguments and documents to exploit to justify their personal ambitions. And many tired. I'm just arguing that with all the up and downs, by long before 1444 the Counts were de facto protectors of the Bishops, even without their one consent. And they acted like that. Without Tirolean intervention Trent would have likely become a commune since the city revolted many times against many Bishops (including Aleksander Mazowieck - Alessandro Mazovia in 1435 according to Trent Province culture office history archives). One might say that there was no official vassallage, that in 1444 as a result to the previous events Trent and Tirol were just equal allies. Formally I'll agree, but in practice, after having failed time and time again to break free of Tirolean influence, behind that alliance there was actual Tirol permanent influence over Trent. The victory in the Battle of Calliano, although inconclusive, came because of the strength of that relation. Similarly one may say that in 1511 the Landlibel signed by Trent Brizen and Tirol was formally a federation, a strong alliance. But when you give up your military independence and start to contribute money to Innsbruck instead of committing to sending your armies, I'd say that in EU4 terms it's more like integration than alliance. I guess that the difference between our interpretation is that you look at the official definitions while I look more at the implications.

It was nice to have this exchange of opinions anyway. May I ask you where you are from in the province?

I'm born in Non valley, though I live in Italy since 15 or so years now. By now I've lost the accent and I sound more like a Florentine, but I can't lose the memory of the castles (Non Valley is also known as Valley of Castles).

Regardless of how it will end to be, it's cool to see old Trent getting it's opm independent or not. I hope PDX will take the time to spice it up with some events like Gaysmar revolts, the aforementioned Landlibel and the Thuns branch that established in Bohemia.