That left me thinking for the last hours and I tried to check for more accurate datas. I mainly used these maps as reference:
Modern day France right before the Revolution. I'll explain all the numbers when we come to them.
1477 France
1180 France
1030 France
As Britanny, Guyenne/Gasconny and Normandy are too big historically, I tried to find subdivisions. I failed to do so for Champagne however.
Religious map only, so not entirely accurate, especially for the names of the areas.
18th century Guyenne. Everything south of that and west of Toulouse is Gasconny, more or less.
So, why these maps, and especially the old ones.
The fact is that there are too many small counties in France with a significant historical importance. The real question is which one should be kept, which ones should be fusioned into a provinc
e, and in that case which counties should be grouped together. That's where history plays a part and that's what I tried to think about.
The issue is also that most of France was stable after the end of the HYW, so there are less maps and less movement, and Middle Ages maps allow us to draw better lines, especially in the West.
So here is what I came with. This is
NOT what I want to see implemented in the game as there are too many provinces (even if Korea or Japan have this kind of density in some place actually). But it's something I want to use as a tool, and the real question is more "which of these provinces can we group with another one, and with which one". I draw badly, even on paint, so there are some really ugly looking provinces. What matters is the idea, not the exact borders.
So I'll try to go region by region and number by number.
Britanny
Historically Britanny was split between 9 provinces. There can't be 9 in the game, but I think that there should probably be a bit more, and if 4 provinces are chosen this can't be the 4 in the game for sure, or at least they need to be slighlty redrawn.
The reason behind current map is quite clear, this is almost exactly the modern subdivision of Britanny, which is split between 5 French provinces: Finistère, Morbihan, Côtes d'Armor, Loire-Atlantique and Ille-et-Vilaine. Ille-et-Vilaine was simply split between Armor and Loire-Atlantique (Nantes) to make the EUIV map. That's an issue for a major reason:
Britanny is culturally split between the Armor and the Argoat/Arcoat/Arcoët, pretty much like Japan, it's the difference between the coast with fishing as the historical resource, and the inland with agriculture as the historical resource. Modern day Britanny is still known for Fishing, especially in Finistère, and its ports (Lorient, Brest), but at the same time for the agriculture and especially Pig farming. Rennes clearly belongs to Argoat, it's one of the cities the furthest from the sea, and having it as capital of Armor always bugs me completely when I think of it. What's called Armor/Côtes d'Armor in France is different from what Armor represented in Britanny (and still represents), it's probably a misunderstanding which remained.
The other historical opposition in Britanny is between West and East. East was under heavy French influence, with big cities and a clear feudal structure, and people talking French from pretty early. It's centered around Nantes and Rennes. West remained Celtic for longer, and this is still the area where you could find the most old people who were raised in Briton and not in French. These areas are called Basse-Bretagne (Breizh Izel) in the west and Haute-Bretagne (Breizh Uhel) in the east.
To go back to the first map I gave, Cornouaille, Léon and Trégor were clearly part of the West, and Rennes and Nantes of the East. Vannes and St-Brieuc/St-Malo are more of a middleground. That's also why having a part of Trégor under Rennes seems wrong. Also, as you can see from that, modern Finistère cuts Cornouaille and Trégor, the province historically makes no sense.
So, even if 4 provinces were to remain, I think "Finistère" should be pushed slightly further east, and "Armor" should have a new name.
I still think there is space for 6 provinces, as I drew them.
1: Léon/Tregor (Leon/Dreger), even if it's hard to chose a name between the two. Leon already exists in Spain, so maybe Tregor, but Leon is probably a bit more populated over the timeframe and definitely is today. Historically, the main cities are Tréguier in Tregor and St-Pol de Léon in Léon, but the capital should definitely be Brest which rose over the timeframe until it became a major City.
2: Cornouaille (Kerne, Kernev, Gerne, Gernev) is almost the same than the English Cornwall (Cornouailles in French), which is another issue because of those goddamn Celts spreading similar names all around Europe. But anyway, it's undoubtedly a major part of Britanny and it deserves its province, centered on Quimper (Kemper for the localized name).
3: Le Pays Vannetais (Wened, Gwened) was historically a bit smaller than it is in the game, but it also makes sense. Vannes was its capital, and Lorient rose as the French made it a major port (like Brest). Vannes still seems like the best capital and should be the name of the province imo, as Vannetais is an adjective meaning "from Vannes" and "Pays Vannetais" is too long.
4: Here are the remnants of Armor. The name is more dubious, as the heart of it is clearly located "Armor" around St-Brieuc (Sant Brieg) and Saint-Malo (Sant Malo) but it goes far down south. It should also include Dol imo so that Rennes does NOT have a port, both for balance and for historical accuracy (not clear on my map).
5: Rennes, landlocked, pretty sel expalantory, the exact borders of Pays Rennais.
6: Nantes, same here, the capital of historical Britanny.
There should probably be some rewriting of resources as well. Just like that I'd say Naval Supply in 1 and 3, Fish in 2 and 4, Cattle in 5 and Salt in 6, but that's also based on modern industry. And no fort in the west, as it was the most backwater part until pretty late.
Normandy and Maine
The issue with Normandy is that it was a united entity from very early. There is a difference between the area of Rouen/Le Havre, centered around the Seine (Haute-Normandie, Caux in the game), which is basically totally worthy of its status of trade province in the game and the area of Caen (Basse-Normandie, Normandie in game), but it's not really based on historical entities, expect that Haute-Normandie is more or less the territory originally given to the Normands and Rollo/Rollon by the King of France, and Basse-Normandie is more or less the territory they conquered (but it's before 1000). That's why I quite like the opposition present in game. If Basse-Normandie (Normandie in game) was to be split to make it smaller, it should be based on what I drew, but it has no historical ground. I would not do it, I just give the option.
Overall I struggle to find good names there because there was no signficant county besides Alençon and all the major cities were under the Duke (Eu is another county but it was always been on the far north-east of Normandy and could not fit for Rouen).
Alençon, therefore, is the only really good choice to split Normandy, but it's WAY too big in the game (just look at the 1477 map!) and it extends too far south into Maine in game, probably to make the province more clickable. It would be better to make it extend further north inside Normandy, so that at least it stays within its historical region. Or to have it small, it isn't smaller than Calais on my map. That would allow for a better-shaped Maine.
7: Coutances+Avranches would make sense if (and I'm not convinced) there should be a province there, as it's the part of Normandy that looks more towards Britanny than towards England and has historically been contested to a certain extent. Avranches was the biggest city there.
8 : It's basically Caen or Basse-Normandie for me, with Caen as its capital. It covers Bayeux and Lisieux in my map.
9 : It's basically Rouen or Haute-Normandie. Caux is a geographical entity that does NOT include Rouen, the capital of the province. That's problematic even if the Paradoxian attempt to find a better name is appreciated. The province covers Rouen and Evreux in my map.
10 : It would be more or less be Sées on the map, and should be called Alençon as it was the name of the Duchy and the biggest city.
11 : Maine is one of the most consistent areas of France. It has the same name and the same borders on all the maps I found, its capital is obviously Le Mans. I would just fix the borders because it's smaller in the game (because of Alençon as I said).
Around the Loire
Let's focus on the provinces around the river Loire. As pretty much everyone noticed, Orléanais is awfully and ahistorically big, and Touraine is missing while it was super rich and important for the entirety of the French history. Same goes for Blois. Time to look at the historical maps.
15 is Anjou, 22 is Touraine and 3 is Orléanais (which includes Blois).
Anjou, Touraine, Blois and Orléans with the borders I tried to gave them.
Anjou, Touraine, Blois and Orléans with fairly obvious borders.
Touraine is split between Anjou and Blois here, but we clearly see the border between Blois and Orléanais.
So, it seems that there is no doubt:
12 : Anjou, slightly redrawn to make some room for Touraine. Angers as the capital.
13 : Touraine, Tours as the capital.
14 : Blois, Blois as the capital.
15 : Orléanais, Orléans as the capital. As for the border on the East, it seems that Orléans borders Nevers on all the maps I found because it includes that small and ugly snake called Sancerre, or at least the Northern part of it, more often than not (and it definitely does in the most important map, the first one, which was used during the main part of the EU4 timeframe). It also makes Nemours smaller, which makes sense as Nemours is historically a lot smaller than on the EU4 map (but we'll talk about that).
The Crownlands
The domain of the French king varied, but as Orléans fell into the hands of the Cadet Branch, it was left with the province 1 on this map:
18th century map of the Crownlands.
It includes modern-day Ile de France, the region of Paris and the EU4 province of Paris which all cover more or less the same borders, and the area of Vermandois, which was the home of the Valois before they became king of France, and thus came into the hands of the French crown from a different way. That's why on the 2 older maps you see it called "Comté de Vermandois" and "Comté de Valois" and it is not a part of the Crownlands yet (Capet still rule), and on the third one it is still called "Duché de Valois" and took a good half of the "Comté de Vermandois", even if Valois now rule. Splitting it makes sense and I agree with that area.
However, we see on both the maps that the ingame province of Paris goes too far west and that a province is probably missing there. It was part of the Crownlands on many occasions, but I think Paris is too big a province anyway.
16: It would be Chartres, probably. It's the province I'd add.
17: Paris/Seine/Ile de France all make sense as names, Paris the capital, and the capital of France (no joke).
18: Vermandois as in game or Valois, which may be better in the EU4 timeframe (Vermandois is more of a CK2 thing as we can see on the maps, and huge parts of historical Vermandois were controlled by Burgundy and are part of Cambray or Picardie on game start). I'm not convinced with Compiègne as the capital however. Clermont, Compiègne and Soissons also have importance in the EU4 timeframe. Crépy-en-Valois was the head of the Valois duchy, but it was less relevant.
Champagne
I really don't like it but I found literally nothing to split Champagne in the EU4 timeframe. Historically, it seems (I don't know anything about this part of France, probably the one I know the less about) that it is composed of 3 parts, the county of Meaux (east of Paris), the county of Troyes, and the Bishop of Reims. We see in 1030 that Champagne is still split between Meaux and Troyes even if they have the same ruler, and Reims still is independant from Champagne on the second oldest map. These 3 regions could not have 3 provinces imo, so I left free to group Meaux with Troyes, as in the Middle Ages, or with Reims. The Paradox decision was to group the Duchy of Nemours with the Troyes part of Champagne and call it Nemours, this seems outright wrong for me, as Troyes was the historical capital of Champagne and had never anything to do with Nemours. That's why I made Nemours smaller, and cut the bigger Champagne in 2 part, for Reims and Troyes. That leaves us with the question of where to put the center of trade.
19: I would call it Reims as it was historically independant from Champagne if it does not include Meaux. Else it could be called Champagne, but I still think Champagne fits the Troyes part better, judging from the Middle Ages maps.
20: Champagne, and I am more and more thinking that it should include Meaux (the fareastern part of Paris province, the little 19/20, which could be even smaller). Troyes as the capital
21 : Nemours, a lot smaller, which then looks a lot more like the 1477 map.
That leaves us with an unsatisfying spot around the Counties of Auxerre and Tonnerre which I split between Nemours, Bourgogne and Nevers as Paradox did because I lack the exact knowledge of the situation in 1444. I know it was some kind of Maine of the french-burgundian relations. It was officially French but held by Burgundy until the death of Charles le Téméraire (BI). It could be the beginning of an idea to split the Bourgogne province but I lack sufficient data for 1444 so I ignored that and left it untouched. A 1477 map does not say anything about 1444 for such a contested area.
Split because too many pictures.
