When playing Romania in recent patches, there are 2 things that break immersion for me: The Transylvanian core on West Banat, The Ukrainian core on Southern Bessarabia. Please remove them.
1. Transylvanian core on West Banat.
This is an ethnic map of the Treaty of Trianon (1920):
As you can see: There are almost no Romanians in West Banat and almost no Slavs in East Banat.
In fact, in 1930, there were: 37,113 out of 878,877 people (4.2%) Yugoslavs in Romanian Banat, 62,365 out of 585,579 people (10,7%) Romanians in Yugoslav Banat.
So why the Transylvanian core? What is Transylvania TAG supposed to represent?
If it's only the Romanian population, the tag should be this:
If it's all of Transylvania, like "Transylvania whole", the Translyvanians, the tag should be this:
As Ruthenia, Alfrod and West Banat were included in "Transylvania whole".
And if that's the case, I don't see where the "Slavic Transylvania" is coming from. Transylvania had 3 large ethnicities: Romanians, Hungarians and Saxons/Germans, in that order.
The Slavs didn't even made 5% of the whole Transylvania's population.
But instead he have these Transylvanian cores:
What are they supposed to represent?
A developer who thought it would be cool to split West Banat from Yugoslavia in a focus so he gave him a tag on all of Transylvania.
I can't understand his mindset for doing so, because it's wrong on so many levels.
It's like creating a Scandinavia tag but excluding Norway (Alfrod & Ruthenia), that's how the Transylvanian TAG feels like, being wrong on so many levels.
Or like creating a Swedish Empire map but including Kola Peninsula (West Banat), adding something that doesn't make sense there for some reason.
Yes, there is an issue with the Yugoslav focus if you remove that tag. But that can very easily be fixed by:
(a) Creating a new West Banat TAG
(b) Attaching West Banat to the Vojvodina TAG instead.
Both methods work and are more immersive than this.
2. Ukrainian core on Southern Bessarabia.
This is the region in question:
The reason it breaks immersion is because it's so random. The Ukrainians were the 4th largest ethnic group in Southern Bessarabia. There were: Romanians, Russians, Bulgarians and Ukrainians. The numbers were very close, with Ukrainians being 18% despite being the 4th largest group, the population was very mixed there. But it's still very very weird that Ukrainians get a core but Russian and Bulgarians by contrast do not, despite being more numerous than Ukrainians.
We have regions in Hearts of Iron 4 with 20% - 30% of a minority and that region still doesn't get core because of that 20% - 30% of a minority.
Others would argue "it's because Southern Bessarabia was seen as an integral part of Ukraine". Southern Bessarabia was never part of Ukraine until 1940.
I know Paradox is not trying to insert modern borders/populations into this because Ukraine doesn't have a core on Crimeea despite being part of Ukraine today and Poland doesn't have a core on East Prussia despite being part of Poland and populated by Poles today.
I believe in both cases, the real reason for these immersion-breaking decisions is lack of knowledge about the region. Which is understandable, this is clearly not the popular part of World War II, but I would still like them fixed if it is possible because currently it breaks immersion for me, thank you.
Simply removing the Transylvanian TAG on West Banat and the Ukrainian TAG on southern Bessarabia, that's all I'm asking for.
(Not drawing any parallels to the modern situation, but discussing the situation objectively as it was in the interwar period, we can't change history to suit our current views and an entertainment company would likely want to stay clear of serious conflicts, so I'm not going into that territory, only talking about the interwar - World War II period exclusively)
1. Transylvanian core on West Banat.
This is an ethnic map of the Treaty of Trianon (1920):
As you can see: There are almost no Romanians in West Banat and almost no Slavs in East Banat.
In fact, in 1930, there were: 37,113 out of 878,877 people (4.2%) Yugoslavs in Romanian Banat, 62,365 out of 585,579 people (10,7%) Romanians in Yugoslav Banat.
So why the Transylvanian core? What is Transylvania TAG supposed to represent?
If it's only the Romanian population, the tag should be this:
If it's all of Transylvania, like "Transylvania whole", the Translyvanians, the tag should be this:
As Ruthenia, Alfrod and West Banat were included in "Transylvania whole".
And if that's the case, I don't see where the "Slavic Transylvania" is coming from. Transylvania had 3 large ethnicities: Romanians, Hungarians and Saxons/Germans, in that order.
The Slavs didn't even made 5% of the whole Transylvania's population.
But instead he have these Transylvanian cores:
What are they supposed to represent?
A developer who thought it would be cool to split West Banat from Yugoslavia in a focus so he gave him a tag on all of Transylvania.
I can't understand his mindset for doing so, because it's wrong on so many levels.
It's like creating a Scandinavia tag but excluding Norway (Alfrod & Ruthenia), that's how the Transylvanian TAG feels like, being wrong on so many levels.
Or like creating a Swedish Empire map but including Kola Peninsula (West Banat), adding something that doesn't make sense there for some reason.
Yes, there is an issue with the Yugoslav focus if you remove that tag. But that can very easily be fixed by:
(a) Creating a new West Banat TAG
(b) Attaching West Banat to the Vojvodina TAG instead.
Both methods work and are more immersive than this.
2. Ukrainian core on Southern Bessarabia.
This is the region in question:
The reason it breaks immersion is because it's so random. The Ukrainians were the 4th largest ethnic group in Southern Bessarabia. There were: Romanians, Russians, Bulgarians and Ukrainians. The numbers were very close, with Ukrainians being 18% despite being the 4th largest group, the population was very mixed there. But it's still very very weird that Ukrainians get a core but Russian and Bulgarians by contrast do not, despite being more numerous than Ukrainians.
We have regions in Hearts of Iron 4 with 20% - 30% of a minority and that region still doesn't get core because of that 20% - 30% of a minority.
Others would argue "it's because Southern Bessarabia was seen as an integral part of Ukraine". Southern Bessarabia was never part of Ukraine until 1940.
I know Paradox is not trying to insert modern borders/populations into this because Ukraine doesn't have a core on Crimeea despite being part of Ukraine today and Poland doesn't have a core on East Prussia despite being part of Poland and populated by Poles today.
I believe in both cases, the real reason for these immersion-breaking decisions is lack of knowledge about the region. Which is understandable, this is clearly not the popular part of World War II, but I would still like them fixed if it is possible because currently it breaks immersion for me, thank you.
Simply removing the Transylvanian TAG on West Banat and the Ukrainian TAG on southern Bessarabia, that's all I'm asking for.
(Not drawing any parallels to the modern situation, but discussing the situation objectively as it was in the interwar period, we can't change history to suit our current views and an entertainment company would likely want to stay clear of serious conflicts, so I'm not going into that territory, only talking about the interwar - World War II period exclusively)
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