Dear Paradox Team,
The new "Russia Patch" would be a great change to make a small overhaul of the Baltic Region. This would add more historic details and at the same time more game play experience for the Livonian Order.
As i argued above in post #7 & #8, I would propose some changes of the culture tags in the Baltic region. Dorpat should have an Estonian tag (it is already belonging to the Estonian State since the last patch), and Livland was at least in bigger parts also inhabited by Estonians or other people of the finno-ugric culture- and language family and thus would maybe rather do with an Estonian tag too.
Here some maps and facts supporting my suggestion
1) The Vidzeme region (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidzeme) of nowadays Latvia, which corresponds with the Latvian parts of the (southern) Livland province was populated by Livonians and Latgalians. Livonians spoke an urlaic language closely related to Finnish and Estonian (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livonians). As the (northern) Estonian parts of the Livland region were also culturally Estonian, Livland province as of now should have an Estonian culture tag.
2) This map about historical Estonian folk cultures is also showing that the Tartu / Dorpat region was traditionally Estonian dominated, not Latvian
Source:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure...in-Estonian-traditional-popular-culture-after
3) The map of Historical Estonian Provinces (until 1217) also shows that both, Dorpat and (big parts of) Livland region were culturally rather Estonian than Latvian
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ancient_Estonian_counties.png
4) This map of the Baltic Sea of 1539 also marks those territories as part of "Esthia".
Source:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Carta_Marina.jpeg
Conclusion
My suggestion would hence be, to give Dorpat the Estonian culture tag (and not only let it be part of the Estonian state/region), and maybe to split the Livland region into a northern and southern part. This could represent the different cultures and languages in this region better and split the biggest provinces of the Livonian Order to give it more strategic options. My suggestion would be to form a province along the border of Pernau (8) and Fellin (3) in the following map of Livonia (1534).
Source:
https://lv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attēls:Livonia_in_1534_(English).png
The province could be called either Fellin, Pernau or Estonia Propria (as on this map about Swedish Livonia from 1705).
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ducatuum_Livoniae_et_Curlandiae_Nova_Tabula,_1705.jpg
Both cities had a "Ordensburg" (castle of the Order) and were Hanseatic cities, thus had an influential role in this region (other hanseatic cities during the early Livonian time in nowadays Estonia according to following map: / Reval (Tallinn) and Dorpat (Tartu).
In 1470 Johann Wolthus von Herse, the leader of the Livonian Order took residence in Fellin, thus showing the importance of this town (source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viljandi )
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Teutonic_Order_1410.png
I hope this offers some "food for thoughts" to consider my suggested changes
I'm happy to discuss these suggestions and change them if you have better ideas. I think that the changes could offer first - a better cultural and historic depiction of the region, and a better game play and strategic depths for playing the Livonian Order. It would also help to make the different rules over Livonia more historic, as the new province helps to draw better borders for the Livonian Order, the Swedish, the Polish and later the Russian control over parts or all of the territory.
If I find the time, I hope to be able to create a file with the suggested map changes