Tinto Maps #1 Feedback

[MTGian]

I'm still very skeptical of the claim that English crop yields were better than those of Northern France. Wikipedia cites a source with this data: "On several manors in Sussex England, for example, the average yield for the years 1350–1399 was 4.34 seeds produced for each seed sown for wheat, 4.01 for barley, and 2.87 for oats." So that's pretty far off of 7-10 seeds.
I guess England had an advantage because compared to the rest of Northern Europe, it grew a lot of wheat, but it doesn't have particularly fertile soils and the English Agricultural Revolution doesn't start until the late 17th century.
So I don't think it's likely that their crop productivity would have been better than the rest of Europe at the start of the game.

I think we are slightly talking past each other. My post was about advancements in technique. I was not talking about the start of the game. Edit: I actually would favor the parts of England that were enclosed and had a high percentage of rural peasant ownership having higher yields.

I have read that the backwards reputation for France was overstated in parts of the north. Particularly around and north of Paris.

I buy into the theory that English techniques began to change sooner than the late 17th century. Convertible husbandry and other mixed uses with livestock began much sooner than that. Parts of England (southeast coast) actually had enclosed fields from the start of the game period. And after the Black Death, some landlords struggling to find peasants to work the land abandoned agrarian farming in favor of pastoral (because of the high value of wool), which resulted in more areas having an increased percentage of farms enclosed. That would have provided more opportunities for mixed use agriculture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convertible_husbandry#:~:text=Convertible husbandry was a process,the form of animal manure.

 

[Mef]

This is the table that I was thinking of. It doesn't break up France, but does break up the Low Countries. It has percent increase, which is obviously not as good as yield because you don't know where a place started, but it is another data point.

Ah, I see what it's trying to say. I remember a similar chart (it's in here, search for Prussia) for 1700-1914 where annual crop yield growth for France is shown to be very low, about the same as rice in Qing China, 0.06% p.a. or 12.84% over the 214 year period. That sounds really low, but your chart says it was 33% over 300 earlier years so it's possible. English increase of 68% from 1700 to 1914 also looks lower than your 147% for 1500 to 1800, but it's hard to compare the two numbers for different periods.
It looks like France hit a ceiling and stagnated massively while others improved a lot.

It's also interesting to see that Poland ranks so highly in your chart - does this include Prussia? Poland doesn't really have much soil known for its natural fertility, just like the Netherlands and England, so it looks like those places were able to benefit the most from better farming techniques.
This could be represented by having fertile soil give a modifier that makes a big impact early on, but loses in importance as later farming technology adds more modifiers.

I think we are slightly talking past each other. My post was about advancements in technique. I was not talking about the start of the game.

Well this is still a map feedback thread, so it's supposed to be about the state at the start of the game. So improvement from 1500 doesn't really matter for that.

 

[MTGian]

Well this is still a map feedback thread, so it's supposed to be about the state at the start of the game. So improvement from 1500 doesn't really matter for that.

Fair point. Here are two maps on the areas in England that could have higher yields due to enclosure/freeholders. This would justify the higher yield in the first chart.

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[Mef]

Fair point. Here are two maps on the areas in England that could have higher yields due to enclosure/freeholders. This would justify the higher yield in the first chart.

I just think that stuff like this is better represented through other mechanics and not vegetation in locations.


Going back to the actual feedback for the vegetation map shown, my point is this:

We have seen that woods vegetation gives a negative modifier to food production, so I'm assuming that farmland vegetation gives a positive modifier.
The locations of Breda(before Polders), Antwerp, Sint Nicklaas, Ghent, Hulst(before Polders), Bruges and Ostende do not deserve higher food production efficiency, because their soil was at best average and pales in comparison to the vast stretches of fertile land to the south.

Of course a location like Ghent with its high population was farmed intensively, but it did not have good yields, so it doesn't deserve a bonus that makes it more efficient.

 

[ICameToBargain]

Looking at the trade goods, I'd change the raw good for Nijmegen (and/or Tiel if added) to Fruit.

Betuwe is famous for its fruit (particularly apples), it produces a third of all fruit grown in the Netherlands today!

But is that just contemporary or also in the 14th century

 

[Thuis001]

@Pavía One thing I was wondering about, can vegetation change over time? I.e. would it be possible to completely deforest areas as the game progresses, or would it be possible to regrow forests? Either as a thing that just happens or perhaps through active player interference? A somewhat similar question when it comes to topography, especially in Holland. Will it be possible to change the marshes into say, farmland as time goes on through the use of polders, like what happened IRL?

 

[Sulphurologist]

Why not? Grain from Ukraine was one of the goods that Black Sea merchants (like Genoa) traded in.

This concept of farmland representing the existing scale of land use would be a complete break from how farmland works in previous PDS titles, where it's supposed to be land that is naturally suitable for farming and can be developed easily.
I would understand if there was a separate soil fertility modifier, but that has not been mentioned so far.


I'm still very skeptical of the claim that English crop yields were better than those of Northern France. Wikipedia cites a source with this data: "On several manors in Sussex England, for example, the average yield for the years 1350–1399 was 4.34 seeds produced for each seed sown for wheat, 4.01 for barley, and 2.87 for oats." So that's pretty far off of 7-10 seeds.
I guess England had an advantage because compared to the rest of Northern Europe, it grew a lot of wheat, but it doesn't have particularly fertile soils and the English Agricultural Revolution doesn't start until the late 17th century.
So I don't think it's likely that their crop productivity would have been better than the rest of Europe at the start of the game.

The fertile soils of Ukraine are chernozems (black soils). This is a soil type that appears all the way from Ukraine to Western Siberia. With your logic that would turn a massive part of the entire steppe area into farmland. While of course there was grain production in Ukraine, comparing the highly fertile western steppes with the actual part where people grew crops is not something you van compare in this setting. Climate of course also has an impact on why producing crops on the fertile black soils of Siberia might pose a problem.

I also don't see how previous PDX titles farmlands always represent soil fertility? In EU4 there are almost no farmlands in North America, while there are plenty of areas with fertile soil (including chernozems). Tropical africa also has very faborable soil fertility, but turning everything to farmlands there also undermines the actual land usage. I can sort of see it in Imperator, although the steppes are then also not considered fertile.

Soil fertility could be a map mode on its own though, simplified and abstracted from the WRB soil classification. Although, in the 1300s this would mean that you disregard local technological advancements on how people increased yields on less fertile soil., so a technological tree for agriculture would definitely need to exist.
I think for gameplay it would be a difficult exercise in letting players and ai not be able to exploit soil fertility from the get go. You'd need a careful calibration of soil fertility, topography, climate and technology. But it would be very cool if that would happen!

 

[Mef]

I also don't see how previous PDX titles farmlands always represent soil fertility?

It didn't. Amsterdam is farmland in the 9th century in CK3.
Farmland in previous PDS titles represents provinces that are supposed to be easier to develop, rather than areas that are necessarily already highly developed.
But since this game is less abstract and actually has pops and food production, it makes sense for farmland to represent areas that are naturally good for farming.

And of course fertility isn't everything. I'm not suggesting to not make Northern Italy farmland just because the soil there isn't especially fertile. There are other factors to consider, like irrigation from rivers and climate or actual vegetation like with the steppes on most of the lands with black soil.

That's why, while making my vegetation map for Germany, I didn't just paint farmland in all the parts with loess soil but also took into account which regions have historically been famous for their suitability for farming.

 

[Keksburg]

@Pavia

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[Caracus]

I love the introduction of lower franconian! People are quick to forget that modern or maps from 100 years ago do not always reflect the situation back then.
Back then lower franconian probably was just as equally as different to any of the other german dialects as Austrian/Bavarian is for me as a franconian dialect speaker today. The only reason we understand each other that well today is due a history of sharing a bible, centuries of proximity and lots and lots of language reforms and standardization over the past two centuries especially. But all that hadnt happend yet in 1337!

Who knows, if the Spanish/Austrian Netherlands or the influence of the French and British never happened like that if today the Lower Fraconian would be standard or core German and people would mock you for suggesting to add Austro-Bavarian or Saxon to the core German area. This evolution and possible different outcomes are why I personally like to play these age spanning games.

Back then all German dialect regions were a lot more distinct from each other than today and while that sounds counterintuitive at first, that makes it easier for all of them to come together as they have yet to findcommon ground and standardize. In the case for the German language the way we perceive the pre reform standard German has a lot to do with where Luther came from as the German bible became the first major unifying standard for how you write and an in turn also say stuff. Coming back to my earlier example, if Luther came from Brugge then you can bet that that modern German would look way different from the Saxon Luther German, this is also true for a Luther from the North or Switzerland respectively.

Maybe during these centuries this lower franconian expands if its carried on by a big nation, or other breakups form their own distinct cultures that further diverge from what would be "standard german" today. Maybe those cultures will be dutch and flemish but maybe something else entirely.

 

[William the Merry]

I love the introduction of lower franconian! People are quick to forget that modern or maps from 100 years ago do not always reflect the situation back then.
Back then lower franconian probably was just as equally as different to any of the other german dialects as Austrian/Bavarian is for me as a franconian dialect speaker today. The only reason we understand each other that well today is due a history of sharing a bible, centuries of proximity and lots and lots of language reforms and standardization over the past two centuries especially. But all that hadnt happend yet in 1337!

Who knows, if the Spanish/Austrian Netherlands or the influence of the French and British never happened like that if today the Lower Fraconian would be standard or core German and people would mock you for suggesting to add Austro-Bavarian or Saxon to the core German area. This evolution and possible different outcomes are why I personally like to play these age spanning games.

Back then all German dialect regions were a lot more distinct from each other than today and while that sounds counterintuitive at first, that makes it easier for all of them to come together as they have yet to findcommon ground and standardize. In the case for the German language the way we perceive the pre reform standard German has a lot to do with where Luther came from as the German bible became the first major unifying standard for how you write and an in turn also say stuff. Coming back to my earlier example, if Luther came from Brugge then you can bet that that modern German would look way different from the Saxon Luther German, this is also true for a Luther from the North or Switzerland respectively.

Maybe during these centuries this lower franconian expands if its carried on by a big nation, or other breakups form their own distinct cultures that further diverge from what would be "standard german" today. Maybe those cultures will be dutch and flemish but maybe something else entirely.

Saxon Germans becoming regarded as non German is far, far less likely than how austrians are conceived nowadays. Having the whole area as lower franconian makes it innately more stable despite centuries of different counts, margraves, and dukes

 

[mrflagio]

Ah, I see what it's trying to say. I remember a similar chart (it's in here, search for Prussia) for 1700-1914 where annual crop yield growth for France is shown to be very low, about the same as rice in Qing China, 0.06% p.a. or 12.84% over the 214 year period. That sounds really low, but your chart says it was 33% over 300 earlier years so it's possible. English increase of 68% from 1700 to 1914 also looks lower than your 147% for 1500 to 1800, but it's hard to compare the two numbers for different periods.

A lot is going to depend on who had access to new world bird guano pre-1913 (after that fertilizer could be synthesized in the Haber process). That'd probably explain why England's was higher than France's.

 

[Pavía]

Very nice, I only have one thing that stood out to me:

Why did you add all these woods and forests to the Netherlands? We discussed this in the thread, and the consensus opinion was that all modern forests in the Netherlands are man-made and weren't present during the game's time period.


The goods look great! Although I still think that Liège as the biggest producer of coal at the start of the game should have that resource and marble moved to a neighboring location.

We've followed different feedback we received, in two places:

1. In the (modern) Netherlands, we have used this paper https://rurallandscapesjournal.com/articles/10.16993/rl.82 to add the most likely forests in the region.
2. In the Ardennes Forest, we've added a bit more density, based on proposals such as yours.

 

[Pavía]

View attachment 1135165View attachment 1135166
New country too?

Yes, Zutphen was added as a PU with Gelre, as suggested by many, and confirmed through research.

 

[Lord Lambert]

PU under Gelre

under? So some way down the integration path in the PU IO?

 

[Pavía]

under? So some way down the integration path in the PU IO?

Actually not, I've just edited the sentence to use 'with', to avoid any misunderstood.

 

[Lord Lambert]

Actually not, I've just edited the sentence to use 'with', to avoid any misunderstood.

Dang it, almost had you!

 

[Mef]

We've followed different feedback we received, in two places:

1. In the (modern) Netherlands, we have used this paper https://rurallandscapesjournal.com/articles/10.16993/rl.82 to add the most likely forests in the region.
2. In the Ardennes Forest, we've added a bit more density, based on proposals such as yours.

Yeah the Ardennes are fine, they still provided plenty of firewood for Belgium's early industrialization.
But regarding the Netherlands, the paper suggests that there was some woodland left, but how does that turn into 3 forest locations? Some of these woodlands suggested by the study are very localized compared to the location size and since they were likely all heavily in use they would have been very sparse. I assumed the threshold for what counts as woods or forest was higher.

Woodland cover further declined after the late medieval period, causing serious timber shortages in the southern Netherlands already in the 15th century and also in the north in the 16th century (Buis, 1985). Telling may also be the fact that after the 13th-century, thick, hollowed-out tree trunks (Fischer, 2008) were no longer used for making water wells.

Knowing that the Netherlands were struggling with shortages (like all of Western Europe, pretty much), it just looks really strange when they have plenty of woods and forests available. If this is the standard, is there going to be any place in Europe that will have to deal with a lack of lumber? That was something that was a big issue historically.

 

[Lindström]

@Pavía Nice changes! Great to see that you’re taking input from the community to heart.

I’m just wondering regarding the choise of calling the language/culture group ”Lower Franconinan” rather than ”Low Franconian”. As far as im aware language groups are most often referd to as ”Low/high” rather than ”Lower/higher” as in the case of ”High german”, ”low german” and ”low saxon”. Atleast in english.

The reverse seems to be true regarding area names where areas, often based on the the flowing of rivers or altitude of the lands are called ”Lower/upper”, as is for example the case regarding ”upper/lower silisia” and ”upper/lower egypt”.

So my suggestion is that you change the name to ”Low” from ”Lower”, also thanks for these possibilites to give input, keep up the good work!

 

[MTGian]

@Pavía (sorry if it is obnoxious to @) - Any representation for peat industry? This was a major industry according to seminal works like "The First Modern Economy" by Jan de Vries. Access to cheap energy was an important element in the Netherlands rise to greatness.

Maybe represent it with a different system? Make up for its absence in some way? I'm just curious what the developers are thinking. I would think it would be difficult for the Netherlands to reach its historic position without the important elements that led to the success.

Edit:

Here are some passages from the text:

"Another characteristic of these recently settled lands is that the peat soil served both as an agricultural resource and, when cut and dried, as a course of fuel. Moreover, in certain areas, the peat could be burned to yield salt. Peat ranked as the only natural resource of importance, and Hollanders not only exploited it for local home and industrial use, but also exported it in growing quantities to the large urban markets of Brabant."

"In addition, we have noted the large amount of energy available per worker. The Republic's peat deposits provided a uniquely large supply of heat energy - in excess even of England's coal output until well in the the eighteenth century - and this was supplemented by industrial windmills, horse-powered mills, imported coal, and the largest per capita endowment of ocean, inland, and fishing vessels in Europe".
Emphases - mine.

There is an entire section on peat industry that I won't copy here, but it describes peat as a major pillar of the economy, cheap and plentiful, etc. It was a big deal.