Improved Lowlands Map

[Mattymooz]

NOTE : Coming soon to the Steam Workshop : http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=451040975​

After my vision of a better England was so well recieved, I'm just going to start doing other places (mainly in Europe) that I think deserve more better provinces.

Please note that the idea of these changes is too add depth to an area and make it more accurate, but not to go completely indepth in certain areas with tiny provinces. They still need to be clickable and a reasonable size. I'm not going to make an area a mass of utrechts and maltas.

So, this time my focus was the Lowlands. Here is what I would change if I was Paradox:

The changes added a total of 5 new provinces. This resulted in 1 new province for Flanders, 1 for Holland, 1 for Brabant, 1 for Gelre and 1 for Utrecht.

I haven't added any new cultures, but here is what the outline of dutch/flemish looks like:

I have also changed the Base Tax a bit. Overall there has been a fair amount of Base Tax added, to fully represent the power of this region. Some provinces got buffed and extra provinces got added, making it very wealthy. There have also been several trade modifiers added to the area as well

Again I will be uploading it to the workshop soon, so you guys will be able to play with it. Any amendments would be great. My expertise is not in this area of the world so it could be horribly wrong!

And yes, Germany is pixelated, it hasn't been fully finished yet and I don't wanna show it off till it's done!

 

[Twoflower]

Yay for Limburgish and Frisian, and double yay for the Jülich and Mark provinces! Tbh, so far I've mostly stuck to playing vanilla, but this convinced me to finally go ahead and try your map mod Btw, would you also take suggestions for monarchs, ideas, decisions and DHEs for Kleve-Mark, Jülich-Berg and Gelre?

Some nitpicks:
As already said, Aachen is pretty much borderline. Dialect-wise, the city itself is not Limburgish, but Ripuarian (i.e. the same dialect group as Cologne). However, the Ripuarian / Meuse-Rhenish dialect border did shift northwest in that area over the centuries, so for 1444, it might not even be incorrect in that regard. Politically and socioculturally, it makes sense to give it Limburgish culture anyway.
Cologne, on the other hand, has always been pretty much the center of the Rhineland and of Rhenish culture, hence I'd have my doubts about making it Limburgish. It was, to a certain extent, part of the Burgundian sphere of influence (as already said, Charles the Bold set his eyes on it in 1474), and the Truchsess feud of the 1580s was pretty much a side theater of the Dutch War of Independence, so politically and for gameplay, it would not be completely unreasonable to make it Limburgish, but would still look strange.
The County of Mark is part of Westphalia and should share the culture of the other westphalian provinces.

 

[Zylathas]

I came up with the last minor annoyance I am having with the Netherlands, but this is a rather small one.

Could the name of the formable be changed to United Provinces? It's much more timeline appropiate.

 

[Mattymooz]

Yay for Limburgish and Frisian, and double yay for the Jülich and Mark provinces! Tbh, so far I've mostly stuck to playing vanilla, but this convinced me to finally go ahead and try your map mod Btw, would you also take suggestions for monarchs, ideas, decisions and DHEs for Kleve-Mark, Jülich-Berg and Gelre?

Some nitpicks:
As already said, Aachen is pretty much borderline. Dialect-wise, the city itself is not Limburgish, but Ripuarian (i.e. the same dialect group as Cologne). However, the Ripuarian / Meuse-Rhenish dialect border did shift northwest in that area over the centuries, so for 1444, it might not even be incorrect in that regard. Politically and socioculturally, it makes sense to give it Limburgish culture anyway.
Cologne, on the other hand, has always been pretty much the center of the Rhineland and of Rhenish culture, hence I'd have my doubts about making it Limburgish. It was, to a certain extent, part of the Burgundian sphere of influence (as already said, Charles the Bold set his eyes on it in 1474), and the Truchsess feud of the 1580s was pretty much a side theater of the Dutch War of Independence, so politically and for gameplay, it would not be completely unreasonable to make it Limburgish, but would still look strange.
The County of Mark is part of Westphalia and should share the culture of the other westphalian provinces.

Tbh, never done any modding on dhe's, but if you have suggestions message me and I'll see what I can do (or send me it all coded if you are that skilled! )

Will change the culture of mark when I get home. Would it be better if the primary culture of kologne and aachen are both rheinish but the provinces are limburgish?

I came up with the last minor annoyance I am having with the Netherlands, but this is a rather small one.

Could the name of the formable be changed to United Provinces? It's much more timeline appropiate.

That would be an easy change! Will fix when I get back to my pc

 

[Zylathas]

Great, now I will stop bothering ya (atleast for now)

 

[Twoflower]

Perhaps a few thoughts regarding country setup.
On your screenshot I noticed the nice CoAs for Mark, Berg and Jülich, so I suppose you have all of them as independent countries?

Since Jülich and Berg had been united in 1423, and Kleve and Mark in 1398, there should only be Berg owning Jülich and Berg (with its capital in Berg – their residence was Schloss Burg near Solingen, and later Düsseldorf, both in the Duchy of Berg) and Kleve owning Kleve and Mark.
The County of Mark was ruled by Duke Adolf of Kleve’s Gerhard, who had been granted a lifelong regency of the county in 1437. Since this regency was not transferrable to Gerhard’s sons, and rule of Mark passed back to Johann of Kleve after Gerhard’s death in 1461, this would be better represented by a relatively high local autonomy rather than independent Mark IMO (the various dynastic divisions of e.g. Brandenburg, Pomerania, Mecklenburg or Bavaria are not represented by independent countries, either, after all).
Jülich and Mark would of course make sense as revolters (especially since in 1444 their integration was still quite recent), however, if you’re concerned with saving tags, it would in my opinion be more important to have independent Paderborn, Osnabrück and Hoya.

One other question is if and how to represent the second war of Gelre succession which lasted from 1423 to 1447. Some background: after the extinction of the main branch of the dynasty of Jülich-Geldern in 1423, the inheritance passed to a cadet branch which already held the Duchy of Berg. Basically defying the rules of dynastic inheritance, the estates of Gelre elected Arnold of Egmont. This led to a war for the whole inheritance between Arnold of Egmont, Duke of Gelre, and the Dukes Adolf VII (died in 1437) and Gerhard VII of Berg. The decisive battle was the Battle of Linnich (the “Hubertusschlacht”) on November 3rd 1444, which ended in victory for Gerhard of Berg. While that battle was just before game start, the two dukes remained at war for 3 more years until the peace of Dülken in 1447, where Arnold kept Gelre and Gerhard Jülich. Both, however, did not really renounce their claims on the whole inheritance. Gerhard sold his claim on Gelre to Charles the Bold for 80.000 Guilders in 1473, which was actually Burgundy’s pretext for annexing Gelre. Karl of Egmont, Duke of Gelre, revived the claim on Jülich in the 1490s.
So, what to make of this? Gelre and Berg could certainly start at war, though that war was pretty much decided after the battle of Linnich. Alternatively, it would be quite reasonable to give a claim on Jülich to Gelre and a core, claim or restore union CB on both of Gelre’s provinces to Berg.

 

[Vaximillian]

Could the name of the formable be changed to United Provinces? It's much more timeline appropiate.

Now that's the oddest nitpick ever.

 

[Mattymooz]

Perhaps a few thoughts regarding country setup.
On your screenshot I noticed the nice CoAs for Mark, Berg and Jülich, so I suppose you have all of them as independent countries?

Since Jülich and Berg had been united in 1423, and Kleve and Mark in 1398, there should only be Berg owning Jülich and Berg (with its capital in Berg – their residence was Schloss Burg near Solingen, and later Düsseldorf, both in the Duchy of Berg) and Kleve owning Kleve and Mark.
The County of Mark was ruled by Duke Adolf of Kleve’s Gerhard, who had been granted a lifelong regency of the county in 1437. Since this regency was not transferrable to Gerhard’s sons, and rule of Mark passed back to Johann of Kleve after Gerhard’s death in 1461, this would be better represented by a relatively high local autonomy rather than independent Mark IMO (the various dynastic divisions of e.g. Brandenburg, Pomerania, Mecklenburg or Bavaria are not represented by independent countries, either, after all).
Jülich and Mark would of course make sense as revolters (especially since in 1444 their integration was still quite recent), however, if you’re concerned with saving tags, it would in my opinion be more important to have independent Paderborn, Osnabrück and Hoya.

One other question is if and how to represent the second war of Gelre succession which lasted from 1423 to 1447. Some background: after the extinction of the main branch of the dynasty of Jülich-Geldern in 1423, the inheritance passed to a cadet branch which already held the Duchy of Berg. Basically defying the rules of dynastic inheritance, the estates of Gelre elected Arnold of Egmont. This led to a war for the whole inheritance between Arnold of Egmont, Duke of Gelre, and the Dukes Adolf VII (died in 1437) and Gerhard VII of Berg. The decisive battle was the Battle of Linnich (the “Hubertusschlacht”) on November 3rd 1444, which ended in victory for Gerhard of Berg. While that battle was just before game start, the two dukes remained at war for 3 more years until the peace of Dülken in 1447, where Arnold kept Gelre and Gerhard Jülich. Both, however, did not really renounce their claims on the whole inheritance. Gerhard sold his claim on Gelre to Charles the Bold for 80.000 Guilders in 1473, which was actually Burgundy’s pretext for annexing Gelre. Karl of Egmont, Duke of Gelre, revived the claim on Jülich in the 1490s.
So, what to make of this? Gelre and Berg could certainly start at war, though that war was pretty much decided after the battle of Linnich. Alternatively, it would be quite reasonable to give a claim on Jülich to Gelre and a core, claim or restore union CB on both of Gelre’s provinces to Berg.

Currently they are represented as Kleves having a union over Mark and Berg having a union over Julich. I hadn't thought about how to integrate the Geulders thing yet, but I guess adding a CB would suffice.

I'll have a look at those extra tags too

 

[Fluffy_Fishy]

Light Blue -> Flemish
Pink -> Wallonian
Green -> Dutch
Magenta -> Frisian
Purple -> Hanovarian
Blue -> Rheinish
Yellow -> Limburger

I don't really want too add any extra provinces though, sorry D: They all so small

While it looks very good and historically accurate, to me the yellow area looks a little too clustered and out of place next to the bigger nations that you have left more untouched. I'm not convinced.

 

[Vaximillian]

Did Frankfurt actually grow larger on your map? If it did, I certainly appreciate that; it was nigh-unclickable in vanilla.

 

[Marco Dandolo]

If Limburgian could be called anything, than Ripuarian. I don't know why everone is so fond to call it "limburgian" when this culture group shows exactly the region in which the Ripuarian dialect is spoken, but not the Limburgian. The dialects were extremely similar until 1900 - the oldest recordings of dialect speakers from Cologne in 1900 shows this - but why doing it vice-versa?

 

[Zylathas]

If Limburgian could be called anything, than Ripuarian. I don't know why everone is so fond to call it "limburgian" when this culture group shows exactly the region in which the Ripuarian dialect is spoken, but not the Limburgian. The dialects were extremely similar until 1900 - the oldest recordings of dialect speakers from Cologne in 1900 shows this - but why doing it vice-versa?

I suggested that name because I had no idea how it was called back then. But if it's ripuarian, then it's ripuarian.

 

[Marco Dandolo]

I suggested that name because I had no idea how it was called back then. But if it's ripuarian, then it's ripuarian.

Well, Ripuarian is only a more neutral form for "rhenish". All these dialects are a variance of the language which go back to the variance the Ripuarian Franks (the other group of Franks, apart from the Salian Franks) spoke in the Middle Ages. As the history of this region was majorly shaked by "foreign" powers like Prussia and the Netherlands, the variances became more different in time. Like said before, in 1900 there were several recordings of "Kölsch" which were still rather near to the variance spoken in Limburg. However, Kölsch and Limburgian evolved differently, mostly because non-written dialects evolve much faster than written, official languages.

EDIT: I also want to add that Limburgian is a term itself in the linguistics of this region:

Light Green is shown as Limburgian proper, whereas light blue is today Ripuarian. Limburgian itself is also called Meuse-Rhenish, but it does only include the northern half of the Rhineland:

Twoflowers stated that the Ripuarian limit moved north. I'm quite sceptical about this. For me, all these dialcets had a common "fountain", but seperated in the later centuries.

 

[Twoflower]

I'm afraid I was confusing two things: spoken dialect and the official written language.
Regarding the spoken languages, you are of course right: there was (and is) a dialectal continuum between Ripuarian (Cologne, Aachen, Jülich) and Limburgish (Limburg, Berg, the southern part of the Duchy of Kleve) dialects. There is not really a sharp border between these spoken dialects, but rather a gradual transition, and neighbouring "Ripuarian" and "Limburgish" dialects remain mutually intelligible. Generally, dialects Northwest of the Benrath Line - which is the line between light blue and light green on your first map - are classified as "Limburgish" and those southeast of that line as "Ripuarian", based on the usage of maken/machen (and in general, the consonant shift from "k" to "ch"). In reality, there is no such clear distinction. For example, my regional dialect, Velberter Platt, is just north of that border, thus a "Limburgish" dialect and we indeed use "maken" and not "machen". Nevertheless, our particular Platt for several historical reasons has strong influences from Kölsch, and both vocabulary and idiomatic expressions are much more similar to Kölsch than to the dialects of Dutch Limburg. The same is true for e.g. most dialects of Düsseldorf.
As for the shift northwards, I believe it exists in the spoken language to a certain extent, simply because of the cultural influence of Cologne and of the general tendency towards vocabulary and expressions that are more similar to Standard German. However, this is more a case of the Limburgish dialects adapting elements of Ripuarian dialects and Standard German, rather than them becoming Ripuarian dialects.
The dialects of Upper Gelre and most of the Duchy of Kleve (including the cities of Geldern and Kleve) are north of the Uerdingen line - the ik/ich or ek/ech border - and thus neither Limburgish nor Ripuarian, but Lower Franconian.

Regarding the written and official language, the situation is somewhat different: beginning in the 14th century, official, legal, and literary texts in what is today the southern border area between Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium replaced Latin by a peculiar common written language called "Meuse-Rhenish" (or Rhein-Maasländisch") by modern linguists. As far as I can tell, this area is shown roughly in your second map, however at the height of its usage, it did extend further south - this written form was used in documents in Jülich, Aachen, and even the northwestern part of the Archbishopric of Cologne (e.g. in Neuss). This written language, which was neither Dutch nor German, was slowly replaced by Standard German and Standard Dutch, probably due to influence of the Archbishopric of Cologne on the one and the United Provinces on the other hand - with the territories that remained mostly catholic and had catholic rulers (Cologne, Aachen, Jülich, Berg) adopting German and the protestant territories (Kleve, Mark, Gelre) adopting Dutch.
The area of written "Meuse-Rhenish" and later the areas of written Standard German and Standard Dutch do not correspond to the areas of the spoken dialects. Meuse-Rhenish was used in the Limburgish areas, but also in most of the Ripuarian area, and in the "Dutch" dialectal areas of Kleve and Upper Gelre. Usage of Standard Dutch and Standard German was determined by religious and political rather than dialectal borders.