We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly. You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
Can you units the 2 cultures from the start? I feel like that after centuries of being under the same country(Galicia-Volhynia) and even more under the same overlord(Kievan Rus) has made them pretty similar in terms of language and culture
Honestly, it makes sense to keep them different. These two principalities lived in quite different political realities before unification that influenced them later. Volhynian branch of Rurikid dynasty was constantly involved in fights for Kyiv which made their aristocracy (boyars) constantly travel back and forth with their prince which prevented them from entrenching on land and made them more dependent on princely power. Galician dynasty was more isolationist which allowed their boyars to turn their land holdings to hereditary feuds. Lots of salt mines and good trade location made them richer and they usually wanted to put limits on princely power sometimes even welcoming foreign intervention (such as Hungarian) Galician-Volhynian chronicle (written from Volhynian perspective) paints quite unfavourable image of Galicians hinting that these two groups often didn't get along well. As for common people, well they certainly spoke different dialects maybe not as different as today but still. In medieval times regionalism was stronger than today and as devs themselves aspire to more granular depiction of cultures, I think these two should stay as well (just include them in same Ruthenian culture group or so)
As I understand, devs are corretly trying to emulate difficulties every ruler of the era had with regions, as it looks quite primitive to have 30+ province of a single culture in the era. Grab land, lower badboy, wait for it to core, and here you go, your empire's never revolting base is ready. IR was the contrary.
Yeah heard that inland eastern Latvia is the birth place of modern Latvians not the Germanic colonized coastal areas by Riga. The devs need to change Latvians to Latgalians and maybe give later event for Latvians, and Aukštaitians to Lithuanians. I mean Lithuanian has 100% consistency from start date to 19th century. It's an old documented nation like the Armenians.
No, they have named them as Latvians correctly, Latgalians and Latvians are synonyms historically. They have already assimilated most of Selonians, while Semigallians and Curonians are in the proccess of being assimilated in 1337. While a Semigallian culture would be even more flavour, we can live without it, because it had lost any importance and, sadly, disappeared in a few hundred years.
The confusion about Latvians and Latgalians rises, because nowadays Latgalians are a different culture from Latvian, but back in the days it (and Vidzeme) was the core region of Latvians.
To preface this very long post, I just want to say that I generally believe that these are great improvements from the last post! Especailly a friend of mine from Nysa is very happy to say that hsi city's historic relevance is shown in full.
Once again, I write about the Holy Cross Mountains. I pointed this out last time a Poland map was posted, but I believe portraying the whole country as just flatlands is a bit ridiculous.
While not that high altogether, I believe these mountains deserve to at least be portrayed as some locations/provinces as Hills.
Also! I really appreciate Kielce being renamed to Chęciny on the Province map, though I believe the same should go for the Locations, since as I pointed out in the last Poland post, the city was mostly insignificant until Galena was discovered near (by modern borders, in) the city in the XVI-th century.
Also, also, as someone else pointed out Danzig/Gdańsk was a very significant center of trade sought after by most of the powers seeking control of Baltic trade. Near it, the Vistula's estuary was also very sought after, being one of the goals of the chain of Polish-Swedish wars in the early 17th century.
To make this reply even longer, I believe that splitting Greater and Lesser Poland isn't very necesary to show off the culture, since at the time it was quite more fractured than this, so I believe having a bigger lump Polish culture, instead of a superficial split into Greater/Lesser.
The Kashubian culture also seems to be a bit big. In my opinion it would be best to either confine them more to modern Pomerelia/Gdańsk Pomerelia and extending the reach of Eastern Pomeranian culture OR rename them to Eastern Pomeranian while renaming Eastern to Western. Roughly basing it off of a map made by J. Mitkowski and W. Bucholz based on the works of dr. hab. Józef Borzyszkowski.
I believe that Latvian culture could also be split up a bit, possibly Semigalian, Sellonian and especially Latgalian. Roughly like the map shamelessy taken from Wikipedia down below. (Possibly merging Semigallian and Selonian to not fracture it too much). Map from the 1200s
While a huge nitpick, Masurian could also be a Polish-adjacent culture in the lower parts of the Teutonic Order and/or upper part of Mazovia, to show the Polish settlers on the lands of the Teutonic Order, which once belonged to the old Prussians/Pruthenians that inhabited the lands. Though generally having them be part of Mazovian culture is also fine. Below a map of "Protestant Poles in Prussian Masuria" as Masurians tended to lean towards Luteranism.
No, they have named them as Latvians correctly, Latgalians and Latvians are synonyms historically. They have already assimilated most of Selonians, while Semigallians and Curonians are in the proccess of being assimilated in 1337. While a Semigallian culture would be even more flavour, we can live without it, because it had lost any importance and, sadly, disappeared in a few hundred years.
The confusion about Latvians and Latgalians rises, because nowadays Latgalians are a different culture from Latvian, but back in the days it (and Vidzeme) was the core region of Latvians.
Still for people that read historical texts of how people were called back then it's strange. I mean there is pops now it will be weird to see characters with Latvian culture around 1337. Latgalian would sound far more historically authentic.
I will ask you for a one change in terrain after all: to extend wetlands of Polesia a bit – to Włodawa, Shatsk, Ratne. Basically around this area:
And that’s today, when it’s much dryer than it used to be historically. Polesia is pretty much defined by its swamps. Also, a family friend is a forester in the Włodawa area and I can confirm first hand that there are some serious swamps there.
One more note to provinces, and that’s naming of the province Neumark. It’s not exactly area of Neumark (which changed over the years anyway), and it makes sense only when it’s owned by one of German states, as it means New March in German. The moment somebody else gets it – and especially Poland – the name becomes totally out of place. And it’s surrounded by provinces named by locations anyway, so what’s the point of having this one name sticking out like a sore thumb? More neutral name would be to call it from the location Lubusz (ger. Lebus).
Raw Materials
Really, only one thing struck me. You have wild game in Dębica and Wool in Rudnik. But Rudnik is the one with a dense forest (Puszcza Sandomierska) – could you just switch those two?
Generally, in comparison to the previous version of the map it is more detailed and diverse, but the region lost lots of wheat. Will we be still able to recreate wheat-based economy of Poland with that? And yes, I know, most of it was from Ukraine, but not all.
Locations
Thanks to @Aldaron for all the work done with those, it’s great.
I won’t ask you to draw anything more, but I will ask for some renaming and corrections of spelling.
Renaming:
Wyrzysk – Wysoka (Wyrzysk is completely irrelevant)
Szubin – Kcynia
Rawicz – established in XVII c. in the middle of nowhere; Poniec would be better or Miejska Górka
Buk – Lwówek
Włocławek – Brześć (Kujawski - Kujawski being modern addition like Wielkopolski; Brześć was the capital of the Voivodeship)
Płońsk – surely Mława, I don’t know what Płońsk is doing here
Kamieniec – old name, modern: Kamieńczyk (so whichever convention you prefer)
Łódź – Brzeziny (Łódź became relevant only in XIX c., and it’s known for that, so for a Polish person it’s immediately recognisable as anachronistic)
Mstów – couple good options here, Mstów is not one of them; I would advocate for Olsztyn here
Chrzanów – Olkusz (Olkusz was a centre of silver and lead mining, very important royal town)
Busko-Zdrój – correct modern name, but that “Zdrój” looks very anachronistic here (it’s like German Baden – Spa or Bath); maybe just call it Szydłów? It has a great history and a nice castle
Kunów – Bodzentyn
Kielce – Chęciny, absolutely
Ostrów – Ostrów Wielkopolski (those Wielkopolski/-a are modern additions)
Grodzisk – same thing: Grodzisk Wielkopolski
Rawa – Rawa Mazowiecka (modern)
Sokołów – modern: Sokołów Podlaski @Rayski pointed out that these are not necessary while adjectives for Środa and Biała are necessary; I'm very much in favour of not using regional adjectives (Wielkopolski, Mazowiecki, Podlaski) when not necessary, but in such a case isn't "Podlaski" in "Bielsk Podlaski" also unnecessary? I can't see another Bielsk. Unless you want to differentiate from Bielsko, that would be fair enough.
Spelling:
Znin – Żnin
Poznan – Poznań
Szamotuly – Szamotuły
Inowrocl(ł)aw – Inowrocław (I’m not sure if you have here l or ł, it should be ł)
Dobrzyn – Dobrzyń
Plock – Płock
Lubartow – Lubartów
God, this is time consuming. I’ll write the rest in a separate post when I have more time.
Naming Silesian (and some Lesser Polish for some reason) locations:
That’s an odd one. I see you gave most Silesian locations names in modern Silesian dialect/language (let’s not go into that debate now). I appreciate the attempt, but that’s a misunderstanding.
Modern Silesian is not the same as Silesian dialect group that distinguishes Silesian culture here. Medieval Silesian dialects (let’s call them Silesian 1) are just dialects of Old Polish, with little distinction from Lesser Polish and Greater Polish dialects, as – compared to other European languages – there wasn’t much distinction between Polish dialects at all. In fact, the most different were Mazovian dialects, not Silesian (1) and the next in line were those of Greater Poland. Silesian (1), as neighbouring Lesser Poland, were the closest to it [see: Gramatyka historyczna języka polskiego by Z. Klemensiewicz et at. or Gramatyka historyczna języka polskiego by K. Długosz-Kurbaczowa and S. Dubisz].
Modern Silesian (let’s call it Silesian 2) is a result of centuries of Bohemian and German rule over Silesia – dialects spoken there developed separately from the rest of Polish dialects, missing a number of features present in modern Polish and borrowing a lot from Czech and German.
So the question is, what are you trying to achieve using these names.
Are you trying to give Silesian culture names in Silesian language? But then you have to use Silesian (1), which is just Old Polish. And if you want to recreate pronunciation of the Old Polish for names of locations a) good luck with that, it will be massive work, b) you’ll have to do it for entire Poland, c) maybe you should use Middle Polish instead, as it corresponds with the most of the period of the game.
Or are you trying to give Silesian locations names in Silesian (2) because you’re trying to give them modern endonyms? But Silesian (2) is spoken only in a part of Upper Silesia and not at all in Lower Silesia, and even where it’s spoken it’s a minority dialect/language. So going by both official name and majority use modern endonyms should be in Polish.
Therefore, I would suggest Silesian location names should be in Polish like the rest:
As kindly pointed out by @SMiki Lorebringer some of these names, while being "Wikipedia standard", would be anachronistic for the period of the game:
* Bielsko-Biała - better Bielsko, two towns Bielsko and Biała merged into one after the timeline of the game finishes
** Dzierżoniów - oryginally Rychbach, renamed in 1946 after a XIX c. scientist
That took a lot of time. If gives me even more appreciation of the work put into this region, so again, thank you.
I mean again, I doubt any Poles would care if it got changed to "Lechitic". There are still plenty of nations in this world where Poland is called Lechistan, Lenkija or the similar.
Not something I would go to war for, but I agree with @Tissaia, Lechites / Lechitic Group is a broader term encompassing (using in-game cultural split):
- Greater Polish, Lesser Polish, Mazovian, Silesian (i.e. "core" Polish group),
- Kashubians (i.e. Pomeranians living between Oder and Vistula),
- Polabians (i.e. west Slavic people living between Elbe and Oder).
The map below depicts it well.
We don't know yet how cultures work in game, but if cultural unification is possible (i.e. formation of unified French, English, Polish cultures) I think it would add a nice flavour if, when decided to take the Piast route (i.e. to turn the vector of expansion north-west, in opposition to Jagiellonian's involvment in the east), we could form a Lechitic culture from the ones mentioned above (and possibly Sorbs / Lusatians).
As I understand, devs are corretly trying to emulate difficulties every ruler of the era had with regions, as it looks quite primitive to have 30+ province of a single culture in the era. Grab land, lower badboy, wait for it to core, and here you go, your empire's never revolting base is ready. IR was the contrary.
Except that is exactly how it worked in real life. It was easier and more common for a region of the same culture to be unified than for a multiethnic empire to form. It was easy to reunite China after it was divided but much harder to conquer peripheral non-Chinese territories. Breaking up Polish into three cultures implies that the challenges faced by a Polish state trying to rule Greater Poland and Masovia were similar in difficulty to the challenges of trying to rule Prussia or Ruthenia which is simply not true. When Poland was reunified, Greater Poland, Lesser Poland, and Masovia were reunified before the state started expanding into Prussia or Ruthenia. This is not by chance.
The comment by the dev in the OP implies that the culture mechanics will be getting a huge overhaul; I can only hope that the game will prove capable of compensating for the cultural over-splitting going on. We will have to wait and see.
I hope 'Halychia' is a simple mistake because it's neither a word in Ukraine nor any other language convention. In Ukraine we say Halychyna. I hate 'Galicia' but even this word has grounds because it's a Latin version of Halychyna. Please reconsider because it is simply wrong.
Wieluń province should be definitely Greater Polish culture, because it was a region carved out from Greater Poland. There could be even made argument that Łęczyca and Sieradz province should be Greater Polish, that would be controversial and I don't know history of language enough to make an argument either way. And I still think that Kashubian should be called Pomeranian.
TOPOGRAPHY
I'm really looking forward to the professional review by @Sulphurologist, but I have a feeling that you somehow ignored some hills in Galicia and Podolia and even some mountains: View attachment 1182699
I'm glad to see you have so much faith in me!
Indeed I think the Polish Carpathians can be expanded upon slightly with a few hills and mountains.
Unfortunately, Galicia isn't quite rugged nor elevated enough to make the cut for true hills or plateau. This is the case for nearly the entire southern 1/3rd of this tinto maps! <insert request #253 for rolling hills here>.
For Wetlands I tried my best using scientific literature: using Peat-ML (Holocene peat cover is a great indicator where there used to be wetlands) and info from a Nature paper on historical wetlands degradation.
That said, I did not find any reliable information on historic wetlands for the Baltic, so if Tinto or anyone else has more specific information to share, feel free to doubt my suggestions!
EDIT: adjusted Lithuania using following source: https://lgt.lrv.lt/en/about-lithuanian-geology/quaternary/
Current Topography according to Tinto
Suggested Topography
'Changelog' of suggested topography
Terrain Ruggedness Index
Linear DEM color scale
DEM with exaggerated lower topography
Displayed TRI Categories
Elevation \ TRI
0 - 0,4
0,4 - 8
8 - 23
23 - 50
50+
0 - 500
Wetlands
Flatlands
Flatlands (Rolling)
Hills
Mountains
500 - 1250
Wetlands
Plateau
Plateau (Rolling)
Hills
Mountains
1250 - 2500
Wetlands
Plateau
Hills
Mountains
Mountains/Impassable
>2500
Wetlands
Plateau
Hills
Mountains
Impassable
Area cover of Peatlands (%) - indicator for majority of Wetland types. (Peat-ML).
Note: not all peat is actively growing - significant parts are Early Holocene peat
Estimated area coverage of wetlands in 1700 (%)
(Nature paper) - imo probably some overestimations. (I doubt that the ENTIRETY of inland Lithuania was a swamp...)
Quaternary geological and Wetlands map of lithuania - note tespecially the southeastern border has wetlands, inland lithuania a lot less.
And that’s today, when it’s much dryer than it used to be historically. Polesia is pretty much defined by its swamps. Also, a family friend is a forester in the Włodawa area and I can confirm first hand that there are some serious swamps there.
One more note to provinces, and that’s naming of the province Neumark. It’s not exactly area of Neumark (which changed over the years anyway), and it makes sense only when it’s owned by one of German states, as it means New March in German. The moment somebody else gets it – and especially Poland – the name becomes totally out of place. And it’s surrounded by provinces named by locations anyway, so what’s the point of having this one name sticking out like a sore thumb? More neutral name would be to call it from the location Lubusz (ger. Lebus).
Raw Materials
Really, only one thing struck me. You have wild game in Dębica and Wool in Rudnik. But Rudnik is the one with a dense forest (Puszcza Sandomierska) – could you just switch those two?
Generally, in comparison to the previous version of the map it is more detailed and diverse, but the region lost lots of wheat. Will we be still able to recreate wheat-based economy of Poland with that? And yes, I know, most of it was from Ukraine, but not all.
Locations
Thanks to @Aldaron for all the work done with those, it’s great.
I won’t ask you to draw anything more, but I will ask for some renaming and corrections of spelling.
Renaming:
Wyrzysk – Wysoka (Wyrzysk is completely irrelevant)
Szubin – Kcynia
Ostrów – Ostrów Wielkopolski (since you have also Środa Wielkopolska – those Wielkopolski/-a are modern additions)
Grodzisk – same thing: Grodzisk Wielkopolski or remove Wielkopolska from Środa Wielkopolska
Rawicz – established in XVII c. in the middle of nowhere; Poniec would be better or Miejska Górka
Buk – Lwówek
Włocławek – Brześć Kujawski (Kujawski being modern addition like Wielkopolski; Brześć was the capital of the Voivodeship)
Płońsk – surely Mława, I don’t know what Płońsk is doing here
Rawa – Rawa Mazowiecka (modern)
Kamieniec – old name, modern: Kamieńczyk (so whichever convention you prefer)
Łódź – Brzeziny (Łódź became relevant only in XIX c., and it’s known for that, so for a Polish person it’s immediately recognisable as anachronistic)
Mstów – couple good options here, Mstów is not one of them; I would advocate for Olsztyn here
Chrzanów – Olkusz (Olkusz was a centre of silver and lead mining, very important royal town)
Busko-Zdrój – correct modern name, but that “Zdrój” looks very anachronistic here (it’s like German Baden – Spa or Bath); maybe just call it Szydłów? It has a great history and a nice castle
Kielce – Chęciny, absolutely
Sokołów – modern: Sokołów Podlaski
Spelling:
Znin – Żnin
Poznan – Poznań
Szamotuly – Szamotuły
Inowrocl(ł)aw – Inowrocław (I’m not sure if you have here l or ł, it should be ł)
Dobrzyn – Dobrzyń
Plock – Płock
Lubartow – Lubartów
Danzig – Gdańsk
Putzig – Płock
Mirchau – Mirachowo
Berent – Kościerzyna
Dirschau – Tczew
Mewe – Gniew
??? – can’t read it, but modern endonym would be Polish version of that name
Schwetz – Świecie
Tuchel – Tuchola
Schlochau – Człuchów
Baldenburg – Biały Bór (old name: Białobork)
God, this is time consuming. I’ll write the rest in a separate post when I have more time.
Naming Silesian (and some Lesser Polish for some reason) locations:
That’s an odd one. I see you gave most Silesian locations names in modern Silesian dialect/language (let’s not go into that debate now). I appreciate the attempt, but that’s a misunderstanding.
Modern Silesian is not the same as Silesian dialect group that distinguishes Silesian culture here. Medieval Silesian dialects (let’s call them Silesian 1) are just dialects of Old Polish, with little distinction from Lesser Polish and Greater Polish dialects, as – compared to other European languages – there wasn’t much distinction between Polish dialects at all. In fact, the most different were Mazovian dialects, not Silesian (1) and the next in line were those of Greater Poland. Silesian (1), as neighbouring Lesser Poland, were the closest to it [see: Gramatyka historyczna języka polskiego by Z. Klemensiewicz et at. or Gramatyka historyczna języka polskiego by K. Długosz-Kurbaczowa and S. Dubisz].
Modern Silesian (let’s call it Silesian 2) is a result of centuries of Bohemian and German rule over Silesia – dialects spoken there developed separately from the rest of Polish dialects, missing a number of features present in modern Polish and borrowing a lot from Czech and German.
So the question is, what are you trying to achieve using these names.
Are you trying to give Silesian culture names in Silesian language? But then you have to use Silesian (1), which is just Old Polish. And if you want to recreate pronunciation of the Old Polish for names of locations a) good luck with that, it will be massive work, b) you’ll have to do it for entire Poland, c) maybe you should use Middle Polish instead, as it corresponds with the most of the period of the game.
Or are you trying to give Silesian locations names in Silesian (2) because you’re trying to give them modern endonyms? But Silesian (2) is spoken only in a part of Upper Silesia and not at all in Lower Silesia, and even where it’s spoken it’s a minority dialect/language. So going by both official name and majority use modern endonyms should be in Polish.
Therefore, I would suggest Silesian location names should be in Polish like the rest:
Włocławek, seat of a Bishop since 12th century, deserves its own location. Kowal may be renamed Brześć instead.
Busko -> Szydłów is, as I've suggested earlier, also a goosd idea.
Concerning Łódź - in late game Brzeziny was more important, but in early game, should it not be rather Inowłódz?
I would also add Kunów -> Opatów to your list.
[EDIT] I AM BLIND, THERE ALREADY IS OPATÒW ON THE MAP.
Well, Bodzentyn then maybe?
how about merging Volhynian and Halycki cultures, also how about making Volhyna a vassal of Halychyna and have Liubartas Gedinimai its ruler, also also maybe add Trakai as a subject of lithuania with Kestutis as ruler?
how about merging Volhynian and Halycki cultures, also how about making Volhyna a vassal of Halychyna and have Liubartas Gedinimai its ruler, also also maybe add Trakai as a subject of lithuania with Kestutis as ruler?
Kind sir. Me and all my ancestry are from the discussed region. So I'd be more than happy to see mighty Halychyna-Volynia ingame.
But.
Yes, common people were almost the same,
but #1 still from different east Slavic tribes.
but #2 common people's will meant nothing (well almost, viche customs still were present these days there) there, only elite's-nobles-boyars (and some clergy ofc) wishes were taken into account (high middle ages, remember)
but #3 elites of Volodymyr and Halych/Lviv were not united, yet. There are recorded complains of Halych nobility and clashes with Danylo and Lev for them granting fiefs in Halychyna to Volhynian boyars.
Some cultural union for kingdom tier would be enough. OR
Dear @Paradox hteractive. As you're introducing 2 concepts: pops and regional cultures - can we get a melting pop mechanic, so that pops of regional culture of same culture group, when lived for some time in a single political entity will start blending into common culture with significantly increased speed? Ideally this should be controllable by player, determining the desired level of merging (f.e. yes burgers and clergy will not blend faster, but only Poles can be szchlachta (like it was IR but religion-wise as well) Adding capital distance modifiers (so if Bohemian king gets a province in Saxony, connected to the mainland ofc it will be faster, for Halychyna getting a province in Volhynia will get them assimilated really fast, but getting, let's say near Danube - significantly slower). And adding an ability to choose smth like 'let them become proper Halychians' or 'Were of common Ruthenian origin'. Wouldn't that be most correct way to handle this?
For entities of Commonwealth size, by the middle of the game this should produce smth like almost integrated nobility, having somewhat integrated burgers and having regional peasantry like it was IR for all nations, that stepped onto the doorstep of Spring of Nations.
Still for people that read historical texts of how people were called back then it's strange. I mean there is pops now it will be weird to see characters with Latvian culture around 1337. Latgalian would sound far more historically authentic.
Why? Historically they were also reffered as Letts (mostly), Latgalians, Latvians (Nowadays also Old Latvians), no one differented between these names, it's the same culture and language. This isn't 13th century, when they were independent, but 1337, when modern Latvians (Old Latvians assimilating other Baltic nations) had already started to form.
From Latvian wiki:
''Sākotnēji krustneši par „latvjiem” lībiešu valodas ietekmē sauca vienīgi lībiešu kaimiņu cilti letgaļus (lībiešu: lett, igauņu: läti; latīņu: Lethi, vācu: die Letten). Livonijas krusta karu laikā kristītie letgaļi bija uzticami krustnešu sabiedrotie, tādēļ viņu valoda kļuva par starptautu saziņas valodu (lingua franca) mūsdienu Latvijas teritorijā.''
Translation:
''In the beggining Crusaders called only called latgalians as ''latvians'' (other names for Latvians/latgalians in other languages). During the Livonian Crusade christianised latgalians were loyal allies of the crusaders, that's why their language became lingua franca in the territory of modern Latvia.''
Włocławek, seat of a Bishop since 12th century, deserves its own location. Kowal may be renamed Brześć instead.
Busko -> Szydłów is, as I've suggested earlier, also a goosd idea.
Concerning Łódź - in late game Brzeziny was more important, but in early game, should it not be rather Inowłódz?
I would also add Kunów -> Opatów to your list.
I appreciate significance of Włocławek, but it's so close to Brześć I'm not sure how you can have them in two separate locations.
I was thinking about Inowłódź, I would rather go for Brzeziny as the main powiat town, but it's not a hill I would die on.
You'll note that Kunów is north of Opatów, so changing one to another wouldn't make sense. Something better than Kunów between Opatów and Iłża would be Bodzentyn, and I'll add it to my list.
seems like Liubartas ruled in the 1320 lutsk and liubar and trakai its hard to note when it was formed, it could have an event to get the duchy to form with Kestutis i imagine
I'm glad to see you have so much faith in me!
Indeed I think the Polish Carpathians can be expanded upon slightly with a few hills and mountains.
Unfortunately, Galicia isn't quite rugged nor elevated enough to make the cut for true hills or plateau. This is the case for nearly the entire southern 1/3rd of this tinto maps! <insert request #253 for rolling hills here>.
For Wetlands I tried my best using scientific literature: using Peat-ML (Holocene peat cover is a great indicator where there used to be wetlands) and info from a Nature paper on historical wetlands degradation.
That said, I did not find any reliable information on historic wetlands for the Baltic, so if Tinto or anyone else has more specific information to share, feel free to doubt my suggestions!
Area cover of Peatlands (%) - indicator for majority of Wetland types. (Peat-ML).
Note: not all peat is actively growing - significant parts are Early Holocene peat
Estimated area coverage of wetlands in 1700 (%)
(Nature paper) - imo probably some overestimations. (I doubt that the ENTIRETY of inland Lithuania was a swamp...)
I’m not an expert on this topic, but from what I’ve heard, Lithuania had many swamps in the past. The Baltic tribes used a technique called ‘Kulgrinda,’ which was essentially a submerged pathway or bridge that allowed locals to cross while pursuing Teutonic knights would sink. I’ve also heard that Lithuania became less swampy because many of the swamps were drained for agriculture during Soviet times.
Again, I’m not an expert, and this is just based on what I’ve heard.
