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I'm not contesting that the amber existed in this time frame, I'm just saying it seems to not have been exploited systematically or at scale, or that it was known as a source of traded amber, aside from some prehistoric use (unlike Baltic amber, which was very much exploited, and we have mountains of historical examples, from trade routes to period jewelry, that Baltic amber was an exploited good in the time frame of the game).

I don't see much sense in a trade good that wasn't mined (just maybe opportunistically collected by locals) until well into present day.

But hey, that's just my opinion, I guess the devs did research on this.
Interesting discussion. I was reading " Polesian Amber" handbook and here what I found there: " History of artisanal polesian amber processing dates back to time of Kyivan Rus' when amber workshops first emerged along the rivers (in Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Ovruch and other towns and settlements). For example, during archaeological excavations on the territory of St. Michael's Monastery, a XII-XIII century amber workshop was discovered. Here, 650 grams of raw amber were found along with semi-finished products and amber objects, including chains and crosses." So amber was indeed exploited here before modern times just not at scale of Baltics obviously. In my opinion this trade good should stay but any exploitation of it should be complicated by pretty bad locations (wetlands, poor infrastructure and market access), so there would be a need to invest in location substantially to increase profits.
 
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Interesting discussion. I was reading " Polesian Amber" handbook and here what I found there: " History of artisanal polesian amber processing dates back to time of Kyivan Rus' when amber workshops first emerged along the rivers (in Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Ovruch and other towns and settlements). For example, during archaeological excavations on the territory of St. Michael's Monastery, a XII-XIII century amber workshop was discovered. Here, 650 grams of raw amber were found along with semi-finished products and amber objects, including chains and crosses." So amber was indeed exploited here before modern times just not at scale of Baltics obviously. In my opinion this trade good should stay but any exploitation of it should be complicated by pretty bad locations (wetlands, poor infrastructure and market access), so there would be a need to invest in location substantially to increase profits.
Thanks for the research! This sounds very reasonable
 
How do you culturally divide Polish to "lesser Polish" and "greater Polish"? How did you make that division, what are the actual differences?
There are still some small dialectical differences to this day. Also, Poland was fragmented just before this time period, where lesser Poland and greater Poland were independent. Greater Poland and a Lesser Poland will remain distinct on some levels well into the game, even having separate supreme courts (Piotrków Trybunalski for Greater Poland, Lublin for Lesser Poland)
 
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Revised hungarian location and province names for the region

Bereschany - Bersány
Biecz - Begéc
Biylsko - Bél
Bohorodchany - Bohorodcsány
Bolekhiv - Bolhó
Brody - Barádi
Buchach - Bucsács
Bytom - Bitony
Cieszyn - Tessény
Częstochowa - Csensztokó
Czchów - Csehó
Dolyna - Dolina
Drohobych - Drohobics
Gdańsk - Dancka
Halych - Halics/Gács
Jarosław - Iroszló
Jasło - Jászló
Kolomyia - Kolómia
Kosiv - Kőszív
Kraków - Krakkó
Krosno - Korosznó
Lisko - Liszkó
Lviv - Ilyvó
Myślenice - Mislenice
Nowy Sacz - Újszandec
Nowy Targ - Újvásár
Opole - Opoly
Piotrków - Petrikó
Piskorowice - Piszkorovice
Płock - Palacka
Przemyśl - Perémes
Pszczyna - Pusztina
Racibórz - Ratibor
Rohatyn - Rohatin
Rzeszów - Királyudvari
Sambir - Szambor
Sandomierz - Szandomér
Sanok - Szanok
Sniatyn - Konstantin
Stryi - Sztríj
Tarnów - Tarnó
Tysmenytsia - Tismenyica
Toruń - Tornya
Turka - Turka
Warszawa - Varsó
Wieliczka - Velicska
Wiślica - Vislica
Włocławek - Ladiszló
Wroclaw - Boroszló
Yavoriv - Jávoros
Zhovka - Zsovka
Zhydachiv - Zsidacsév
Zvenyhorod - Zévény
Żywiec - Zsivjec
--------------------------
Drohobych - Drohobics
Gdańsk - Dancka
Halych - Halics/Gács
Kraków - Krakkó
Lviv - Ilyvó
Masuria - Mazúrvidék
Nowy Sacz - Szandec
Pokutia - Kutas
Przemyśl - Perémes
Sandomierz - Szandomér
Sanok - Szanok
Szczyrzyc - Velicska
Těšín - Tessény
Warszawa - Varsó
Zhydachiv - Zsida
 
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German culture should dominate in Gdańsk and Polish culture should be added below Gdańsk as a minority or majority.
According to Stefan Maria Kuczyński, the German population only achieved the majority after local Polish population was murdered and a new settlement was built by Teutonic Knights.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kociewie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kocievians
poli.png
 
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@Pavía I don't want to sound ungrateful/rash, but will we be informed if anything changes in this region after the bits of further feedback of this thread are processed again?

Great job thus far, loving every bit of it.
 
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There are still some small dialectical differences to this day. Also, Poland was fragmented just before this time period, where lesser Poland and greater Poland were independent. Greater Poland and a Lesser Poland will remain distinct on some levels well into the game, even having separate supreme courts (Piotrków Trybunalski for Greater Poland, Lublin for Lesser Poland)
Those are all political differences. I see no convincing reason that they should be considered distinct ethnicities. This doesn't improve the game in any way.
 
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Different members of the Gediminid dynasty.
so i looked about the rulers of black ruthenian and polesian principalities and apparently Karijotas ruled Novogrudok, Narimantas ruled Pinsk and\or Polotsk(Vainius might be ruler of Polotsk) and Danylo Vasylkovych(later Ostrozki) might be the ruler of Turov, and Slutsk i have no idea it could be annexed into lithuania
 
I don't know if it's the right place to mention this but many cultures don't have definite boundaries. Basically Novgorodian - Polatskian - Polesian - Volhynian - Halychian - Rusyn is a continuum, with Novgorodians and Rusyns being very different and speaking mutually unintelligible languages even if there is no clear culture change in between.
 
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Those are all political differences. I see no convincing reason that they should be considered distinct ethnicities. This doesn't improve the game in any way.
We are talking about cultures, not ethnicity. I'm not an expert of polish culture and language, but to my knowledge those are two different dialects. Maybe they have different different traditions or different legends and so on...
Anyway, we don't know how cultures work yet, so maybe there will be a unification mechanic or maybe they are different cultures with high acceptance
 
Here's the traditional areas of South Estonians imposed on the location map of PC. As can be seen Mulgimaa overlaps with the location of Viljandi.
View attachment 1184422
Saarahof can be fully Estonian if that is more appropriate. Viljandi should be a mixture of Estonians and South Estonians, as should Võnnu (Wendau). In fact splitting Wendau might be be a good choice here, but that might make the area a bit location dense.

Map I used for the areas of South Estonian languages.
View attachment 1184423

Like I said.. Your assumptions were wrong. You said that Viljandi should be Southern Estonian because it was part of Sakala and that assumption is wrong. I do understand that when keeping the current provinces and locations then Fellin should have at least a minority of Southern Estonian. I wasn't opposing Fellin being Southern Estonian.. just your previous assumption that it should be Southern Estonian because it was in Sakala. Similarily, it was wrong to assume that Southern Estonian reached to the sea.
 
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Like I said.. Your assumptions were wrong. You said that Viljandi should be Southern Estonian because it was part of Sakala and that assumption is wrong. I do understand that when keeping the current provinces and locations then Fellin should have at least a minority of Southern Estonian. I wasn't opposing Fellin being Southern Estonian.. just your previous assumption that it should be Southern Estonian because it was in Sakala. Similarily, it was wrong to assume that Southern Estonian reached to the sea.
I see. What was happening in Saarahof anyways at this time? The location is named after a German estate that was built a hundred years after the game start. It seems there were no tribal centers in the area prior to this.
As for Viljandi it is quite notable that the border between Mulgi and North Estonian is not quite far from the settlement. Perhaps the settlement was a point of contact between the two groups before Sakala formed as a consolidated county.
 
There are still some small dialectical differences to this day. Also, Poland was fragmented just before this time period, where lesser Poland and greater Poland were independent. Greater Poland and a Lesser Poland will remain distinct on some levels well into the game, even having separate supreme courts (Piotrków Trybunalski for Greater Poland, Lublin for Lesser Poland)
Ironically enough, they made Piotrków Lesser Polish...

Scholarship is actually uncertain whether today's Łódź voivodeship was more Greater Polish or Lesser Polish in language. Regions of Łęczyca, Sieradz, and Wieluń always kinda oscillated between Greater Poland, Lesser Poland, and Kuyavia.
1107px-Polska-dialekty.png
1107px-Polska-dialekty_wg_Urba%C5%84czyka.PNG

Krainy-historyczne-Polski.png
 
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I see. What was happening in Saarahof anyways at this time? The location is named after a German estate that was built a hundred years after the game start. It seems there were no tribal centers in the area prior to this.
As for Viljandi it is quite notable that the border between Mulgi and North Estonian is not quite far from the settlement. Perhaps the settlement was a point of contact between the two groups before Sakala formed as a consolidated county.

Not much is known about Saarhof area. Coastline was often used by armies and raiding parties and becuase of that it is believed that most people didn't dare to live on that coastline. Rest of those lands were deep and dark forests that also weren't suitable for most people to live in. Because of that there aren't many records of even villages in that area. Most known and oldest records talks about Gerger (later Saarhof) manor that was built by Advocatus (in German - Vogt) of Viljandi in order to administrate this massive area. First mention of it is from 1442. There was another smaller manor Tackerort (nowadys Tahkuranna) on the coastline and it is believed that it was built in order to protect a small harbor. This was in the lands of Advocatus of Pärnu. First mention of that manor is from 1562. Because there is not much records nor even archeological findings from this area, it IS mostly a mystery what was there before and after Crusades. Historians aren't even certain if that area mostly belonged to Estonians (Sakala or Läänemaa) or to Livonians (Metsapole) before Crusades happened.

As far as Viljandi goes, we can only assume. Probably it was indeed a spot where Southern Estonian speakers met with Estonian speakers and they intermingled with each other. But that is only a thing we can assume.
 
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We are talking about cultures, not ethnicity. I'm not an expert of polish culture and language, but to my knowledge those are two different dialects. Maybe they have different different traditions or different legends and so on...
Anyway, we don't know how cultures work yet, so maybe there will be a unification mechanic or maybe they are different cultures with high acceptance
There's no reason to have every dialect as its own culture. It's simply not necessary. That's how you get 200 Han Chinese cultures. And you're just talking about hypothetical "well, maybe they had different traditions or legends or something" as if you don't actually know. I just cannot think of anything the game needs four Polish cultures to represent. There was never any movement to make Greater Poland its own country or any country that had Greater Polish as an accepted culture but not Masovian or Lesser Polish. That literally never happened. Not only am not not convinced it could have, but I am sick of people saying we need to add stuff to the game to enable them to do cultural stuff that they're not even sure was actually possible.

It feels like people really want the culture mapmode to be super detailed and capture all of these nuances but aren't thinking about what differences are actually relevant to the challenges of state building (which is the only thing we actually care about). There NEEDS to a be a filter, somewhere we draw the line and say that going past it doesn't bring any benefits.
 
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There's no reason to have every dialect as its own culture. It's simply not necessary. That's how you get 200 Han Chinese cultures. And you're just talking about hypothetical "well, maybe they had different traditions or legends or something" as if you don't actually know. I just cannot think of anything the game needs four Polish cultures to represent. There was never any movement to make Greater Poland its own country or any country that had Greater Polish as an accepted culture but not Masovian or Lesser Polish. That literally never happened. Not only am not not convinced it could have, but I am sick of people saying we need to add stuff to the game to enable them to do cultural stuff that they're not even sure was actually possible.

It feels like people really want the culture mapmode to be super detailed and capture all of these nuances but aren't thinking about what differences are actually relevant to the challenges of state building (which is the only thing we actually care about). There NEEDS to a be a filter, somewhere we draw the line and say that going past it doesn't bring any benefits.
I don't know, but maybe they do. And again, we don't know how cultures work, so maybe there's a gameplay reason. I'm just saying to wait at least until cultures Tinto Talk
 
There's no reason to have every dialect as its own culture. It's simply not necessary. That's how you get 200 Han Chinese cultures. And you're just talking about hypothetical "well, maybe they had different traditions or legends or something" as if you don't actually know. I just cannot think of anything the game needs four Polish cultures to represent. There was never any movement to make Greater Poland its own country or any country that had Greater Polish as an accepted culture but not Masovian or Lesser Polish. That literally never happened. Not only am not not convinced it could have, but I am sick of people saying we need to add stuff to the game to enable them to do cultural stuff that they're not even sure was actually possible.

It feels like people really want the culture mapmode to be super detailed and capture all of these nuances but aren't thinking about what differences are actually relevant to the challenges of state building (which is the only thing we actually care about). There NEEDS to a be a filter, somewhere we draw the line and say that going past it doesn't bring any benefits.
I don't understand the point you're making.

You don't know what impact cultures have in EU5, how they work, nothing. It's probably the case that the various Polish cultures will easily accept one another, just like basically Polish culture can easily accept Pommeranian or Polabian culture in CK3.

Why are there tons of German or French cultures? Why are you not complaining about that? They're still far more divided than Polish culture.

Poland has just emerged from fragmentation. There were quite a lot of differences between Silesia, Lesser Poland, Greater Poland, and Mazovia at this point. There were some big political disagreements between Greater Poland and Lesser Poland. Greater Poland and Lesser Poland were descended from two different tribes. Casimir the Great would issue separate statutes for the two provinces. Hell, the "Crown of Poland", aka the true political unification of Polish lands, hasn't even happened yet in 1337.

This is the design the devs are going for, and it's consistent with other regions. We don't know the cultural mechanics, so maybe we should be more curious than have strong opinions at this stage.
 
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I don't understand the point you're making.

You don't know what impact cultures have in EU5, how they work, nothing. It's probably the case that the various Polish cultures will easily accept one another, just like basically Polish culture can easily accept Pommeranian or Polabian culture in CK3.
I find this line of reasoning to be fundamentally flawed. Generally, discussions like this always take the form of 1. I list all of the ways having this many cultures would break the game, 2. the pro-splitter side attempts to address this by listing ways all of those effects are nullified. Ultimately, if all of the actual impacts of having many cultures are nullified, then what is the point? You are just admitting that the game has to be constructed in order to defeat your suggestions.

Of course, it is true that the culture TT has not been released yet. It may easily change the way we think about this. But in the absence of it, I am prepared to make the default assumption that eu5's culture mechanics will fall within the range of variation that has been demonstrated by all previous paradox games. Unless the culture TT introduces truly radical new mechanics, such as allowing Greater Polish and Lesser Polish to both spawn the same rebel group seeking independence for a common Poland, the only affects this can have on the game are negative.
Why are there tons of German or French cultures? Why are you not complaining about that? They're still far more divided than Polish culture.
As it happens I am complaining about that. Just not in this thread, obviously, because this is the eastern europe thread. In fact if you go to the Germany tinto maps you can indeed see me complaining about it there!

Regardless, the real diversity of Germany and France is greater than that of Poland. There is really only one Polish language, but Germany and France contain many traditional regional speeches that are really separate languages. So there is a linguistic justification for dividing them that you can cite. This is not the case for Polish. The Polish dialects are just dialects of a single language. People seem to have this fixation that every country must be divided into the same number of regional cultures, if there are multiple German cultures that must mean there should be multiple Polish, Romanian, English, etc. cultures. This is wrong and naive. Some countries have less cultural diversity than others.
Poland has just emerged from fragmentation. There were quite a lot of differences between Silesia, Lesser Poland, Greater Poland, and Mazovia at this point. There were some big political disagreements between Greater Poland and Lesser Poland. Greater Poland and Lesser Poland were descended from two different tribes. Casimir the Great would issue separate statutes for the two provinces. Hell, the "Crown of Poland", aka the true political unification of Polish lands, hasn't even happened yet in 1337.
I am prepared to argue that the sense in which Greater and Lesser Poland functioned as a common ethnicity outweighed their differences. The most important one, of course, is that Poland was reunified at all. If they were really actual separate cultures, then there wouldn't have been any political will to reunify them after the period of division. Of course, there were differences of identity between the regions. It is valid to talk about the political community of Greater Poland and the political community of Lesser Poland as two entities within the same country that have different attitudes. However, eu5 has no mechanics for representing that. If they are both accepted cultures, they are both just packed into the country's "Nobility" estate and treated as a homogenous block. Therefore there is no point to doing this.
 
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The most important one, of course, is that Poland was reunified at all. If they were really actual separate cultures, then there wouldn't have been any political will to reunify them after the period of division. Of course, there were differences of identity between the regions.
If you delve into the history of Poland and other Slavic countries, you will find that there were many (partial) unifications of Slavic tribes, development of a new country and divisions again. Due to these divisions and the fact that the winners write history, it is difficult to have one version today. Many old Slavic tribes underwent changes in culture due to influences from other countries. For example, between the Oder and Elbe rivers there were many Slavic tribes that joined the Kingdom of the Franks and were Germanized (but still minority use there some slavic language).

There were many attempts to unite the Slavs by the Poles, Czechs, Moravians and Ruthenians, and there was a lot of big countries in different times, so it was kind of reasons to have difference in each culture. Silesia and Kashubia was a part of Poland in some period in history, but dut to some internal conflicts (also about successions) and wars with other countries, they was separated from Poland. So the culture and language of Silesians or Kashubians underwent a drastic change.

Greater Poland, Lesser Poland and Masovia in the most of Polish history was together, so it can be reason that the difference of Polish culture in this regions is similar. But as a Polish man, I can tell a difference between each other. So it's better to have Greater Polish, Lesser Polish, Masovians, Sillesians and Kashubians in this region, and maybe more like Kuyavians, Łęczycan and Sieradzan which are/were culture groups between those main ones.

Probably it was once in the history, when all Slavs was kind of united in one thing as Eastern Block, when there was a USSR and Yugoslavia. I know that there was a lot of independent country, but heyr was "independent" only in name. But this ideology and system wasn't good and a lot of Slavs don't like it :cool:
 
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