"Most of its existence" is just plain wrong. Even if it was Scandinavian dinasty-ruled state in a darkness of IX century, and even that is debatable, by X century it was already Slavicized completely.
Question to devs about Eastern European provinces in post-AoW
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A good idea would be for Switzerland to only get 3 NIs boosting military, +20% land morale, +20% infantry power, +5% discipline, but have them be the traditions and first NI. So their military NIs would be worse than Prussia's, but they would be active from the start of the game.
No, it wasn't during the whole period until the early 1700s. It was fairly effective in managing vast territories populated by an extremely diverse peoples and religions. It was capable of fielding and maintaining massive armies of size unmatched in Western Europe. It's true that taxation was decided by the Sejm, but Sejms were actually pretty responsible in this matter. They gave the kings taxes, but wanted the kings to make account for what the money will be spent for. Also, Sejm was a part of the central government. So, if Sejm had lot to say about things in Poland, then the country actually was centralized. Poland-Lithuania lacked bureaucracy, not centralization. In this matter it was no different from many other monarchies.
Poland's decline was actually interwoven with the decline of the Sejm. The paralysis of the Sejm was caused by the growth of the magnate oligarchy which brought the decentralization.
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I'm trying to stay out of all the nationalism going on in this thread, but everyone who point out how the Sejm was responsible for the downfall of Poland during the 18th century are forgetting that it was also integral to the Golden Age of Poland before that. The government form of Poland was not the worst one ever used as some would claim, anymore than the downfall of Austria makes regular Monarchy an inherently flawed form of government, or the First French and Florentine republics make a a republican government inherently flawed.
All forms of government have the seeds of their countries destruction in them, as well as the potential for Golden Ages. The only reason the Elective Monarchy / Noble Republic of Poland gets singled out as incredibly flawed, is because Poland was the really the only country to experiment with evolving the regular elective monarchy widespread in Europe (Scandinavia, Hungary, Bohemia) in that particular direction, and they were carved up by their neighbours. However, so were Burgundy and Hungary.
This post speaks lots of truth.
As for the aforementioned beuroucracy, people forget that the central Sejm was made up by delegates from smaller regional gatherings (sejmiki) in the same vein as the main Sejm. It's not the institution of Sejm that was the problem, it was the Liberum Veto within it as well as free election for the King (ANYONE could participate). With time, enemies of the state learned to exploit it by enticing the nobility, until it was too late. But aside from that one piece of legalism and people's willingness to exploit it, the parliament system of the Commonweqalth was as decent of a ruling system as any before or after.
That is a far cry from accusations of "decentralisation" and "almost feudal". For the most part, it's more similar to a modern state (with a national paid, standing army from christ sake) that any other example from that timeframe.
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Liberum Veto wasn't a problem. It was a symptom. Liberum veto was a product of the rising magnate class who were powerful enough to ignore everything and everyone. Liberum Veto was scandalous and actually brought physical danger to the bugger who used it during Sejm. The only way to get away with it was running into safety of a powerful magnate (and usually the actual instigator of the Veto). It was therefore almost proverbial that a delegate who vetoed Sejm run to Praga (then-suburb of Warsaw and place of many magnate residences) while dodging palace guards and enraged noblemen and burghers.
Hello!
First of all I'd like to thank for a great update and expansion, most changes are really awesome and would improve gameplay immensely. Special thanks for fixed Zaporizhya and Ruthenian NIs =) Also I'd like to thank for much desired improvements to American region and Far East. The overall quality standards for province layout have been skyrocketed. But now I feel that some regions that were left almost untouched (with some minor fixes), are unfun to play.
Let's look at the map of Eastern Europe: provinces are huge and mostly square\rectangle-shaped, three-five times larger that in North or Central America. I do understand that there are some map projection issues, lack of reliable sources or business plan that doesn't include funding changes to some minor insignificant regions that none plays after all. Alas, for now Eastern and Southern Slavic plus Balkans regions look like an outdated monstrous chessboard comparing to neat and beatiful New World, Africa and even reworked Steppes Asia. There are also a lot of complains about (Old-)Prussian region that also lacks some ev's attention.
Under spoiler you will see a bunch of screenshots with the same camera distance
The problem lies not only in inaccuare and untidy provinces, but also in low detailization. For example, let's look at the map of XIV-XV century of Poland and Lithuania: lots of castles, towns and cities in a large and pretty populous region (could be richer if Tartars didn't raid) which could be used as new provinces. I've also posted a sample (not quite detailed and by no means not 100% acurate) with possible provinces an example of how this region could look better with more provinces.
My sample proposal for splitting Ruthenian and Belarussian provinces
Ruthenian provinces:
Maramos: 1 Uzhgorod/Ungvar and 2 Khust
Ruthenia: 3 Lviv, 4 Stanislav, 5 Chern
Zhytomyr: 6 Ovruch and 7 Zhytomyr
Volhynia: 8 Zbarazh and 9 Lutsk
Novgorod-Severkiy: 10 Novgorod-Siverskiy and 11 Putyvl
Cherkasy: 12 Cherkasy and 13 Chyhyryn
Poltava: 14 Poltava and 15 Kremenchug
Kiev: 16 Kyiv and 17 Oster
Bratslav: 18 Bratslav and 19 Vinnytsya
Bielarussian provinces:
Mogilev: 1 Mogilev, 2 Mstislavl and 3 Krichev
Minsk: 4 Minsk and 5 Gomel
Turov: 6 Turov and 7 Slutsk
Pinsk: 8 Pinsk and 9 Kobrin (messed up with borders a bit)
Grodno: 10 Grodno and 11 Slonim
Polotsk: 12 Polotsk and 13 Vitebsk
BTW, accoording to the provided map Teutonic, Livonic and Pomeranian provinces should be at least doubled if not trippled
And a personal question to Wiz: could you please explain what criteria did your team follow while adding new awesome provinces? Are provinces based on relative population density, ethic groups or old administrative maps of that era? Just curious to know.
UPD1:
Another issue about Eastern Slavic region is wrong naming: most provinces tend to have Russian names instead of official ones. There may be a lot of debates about proper naming and how those cities/towns/provinces are spelled in English, but official names differ from what EU4 currently has. But there is a sad tendency about naming post-USSR provinces in Russian instead of native languages.
EU4.........................Ukrainian (Cyrillic)..........Latin transliteration........Russian (Cyrillic)..........Russian transliteration
Kiev.........................Київ [ˈkɪjiw]......................Kyiv................................Киев ['kijew]...................Kiev
Chernigov................ Чернігів [t͡ʃɛrˈnʲiɦiw] ............Chernihiv ........................Чернигов [tɕɪrˈnʲiɡəf]........Chernigov
Podolia.....................Поділля [po'dillia]..............Podillia............................Подолье [po'dollije].........Podolye
Novgorod-Seversky....Новгород-Сіверський........Novhorod-Siverskyi............Новгород-Северский.......Novgorod-Seversky
EU4.........................Belarussian (Cyrillic)......Latin transliteration........Russian (Cyrillic)...........Russian transliteration
Mogilev.....................Магілёў[maɣʲiˈlʲou̯]............. Mahilioŭ........................... Могилёв[məɡʲɪˈlʲof] ...........Mogilev
Grodno.....................Гродна[ˈhrodna]................Hrodna...........................Гродно [ˈɡrodnə]..............Grodno
Turov.......................Ту́раў['turau]....................Turaŭ..............................Туров['turof]....................Turov
Polotsk.....................По́лацк['polatsk]...............Polatsk............................Полоцк['polotsk]..............Polotsk
UPD2:
Constructive feedback on South Baltic region:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...n-post-AoW&p=18337327&viewfull=1#post18337327
Feedback about Polish-Prussian border:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...n-post-AoW&p=18336987&viewfull=1#post18336987
UPD3:
Note that actual population could vary greatly from posted numbers. Also, IMHO, adding new provinces in Eastern European region shouldn't change overall BT much in terms of balance and historical reasons.
- 1. PLC's population according to Wiki:
Proving that PLC was quite a rich and populous state in EU4 timeline.
- 2. Khmelnitsky's National Liberation War (or Uprising, depending on side you prefer
) of XVII century had battles with 100-300k people on each side (sources: Eng, Pol, Ukr) that indicates about huge manpower resources both sides of conflict operated (and in EU4 terms manpower is calculated from BT, if I recall correctly).
- 3. There are Ukrainian researches on this matter which tend to show a bit higher numbers of population in Ruthenian\Ukrainian lands: around 4-5 millions at the beginning of XVII century and 2.5-3.5 millions at the end of XVII century.
Compared to western Europe the east wasn't populous at all... I do agree for more provinces cause yes, it is pretty empty. Nevertheless if we use western and central Europe as means of comparison, the east was a lot emptier in terms of populated cities.
The main problem I had when I wanted to add provinces to Ukraine (for a mod) was that almost all cities on the left bank of the river were founded after Russia conquered the area in the 1700's. Not proof, not saying anyone is right or wrong, but it was certainly annoying to have to name provinces "No idea" with the capital of "Capital goes here".
True, but it was still not somewhere Ruthenians would identify with in 1500.
All European states were fairly dominated by nobles at the start of the EU4 time period. Poland was no different. The problem was that as time went on, it stayed vulnerable to foreign influences. Staying in that older system of government while everyone else was becoming a centralised monarchy or republic left Poland vulnerable to Russian influence especially.
Noticed that in CK2 Crimea has no mountains too.
Just for clarification, some pics from:
"Crimea" province (steppe region)
"Caffa" province (current Theodosia)
"Theodoro" province (current Yalta, Sevastopol, Foros)
My point is that the most comfortable and suitable territories are actually "Theodoro" => "Caffa" => "Crimea". IRL those are "Mountain Crimea" "Southern Crimean shore" that cover "Caffa" and "Theodoro" provinces, while Northern Crimean region is a steppe, nothing better than other Black Sea steppes. So in fact "Caffa" and "Theodoro" provinces should have around 6-7 BT each and "Crimea" could have like 2-4 BT.
You just can check the amount of settlements provided on the map from wiki:
By the way, adding a 1-2 BT province Kerch to Crimea would also be nice )
Just for clarification, some pics from:
"Crimea" province (steppe region)
My point is that the most comfortable and suitable territories are actually "Theodoro" => "Caffa" => "Crimea". IRL those are "Mountain Crimea" "Southern Crimean shore" that cover "Caffa" and "Theodoro" provinces, while Northern Crimean region is a steppe, nothing better than other Black Sea steppes. So in fact "Caffa" and "Theodoro" provinces should have around 6-7 BT each and "Crimea" could have like 2-4 BT.
You just can check the amount of settlements provided on the map from wiki:
By the way, adding a 1-2 BT province Kerch to Crimea would also be nice )
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Yes normally I can, if I was to find my papers on Demography based on the research of Jan De Vries (I think in the work "European Urbanisation 1500-1800"). These aren't with me but I'll try to find them this weekend at my old home. Iirc only a couple of million people at best inhabited the Polish-Lithuanian political confines. If you consider France housed some 16-18 000 000 ppl. EDIT: Encyclopaedia Britannica puts the population figures at about 3.6-11 million. A decent figure but relative to its size it made the Commonwealth rather empty, which isn't really a suprise (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/466681/Poland/28179/Foreign-affairs#ref396807). The PLC peaked at a relative population of 11 million people at the very height of its territorial expansion in the 16th century. This isn't nothing but like I said, compared to its size its population density isn't close to that of western and central Europe.
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You probably want to link this to prove your point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Mountains
By the way, I'm not sure that they'll be in-game mountains. Paradox will most likely set the province to "hills". For comparison - I need to check in 1.8, but none of the Romanian provinces had a majority of mountains in 1.7, and the Carpathian Mountains >>> Crimean Mountains (both as maximum/average height as well as area covered).
Vast majority of Ruthenian, Belarussian and Russian population were peasants, therefore it was much harder to calculate the actual total population even very roughly. But even so, 10-12 millions are not that small numbers, even compared to the rest of Europe. And what was the population of Caribbeans or Thirteen Colonies region in 1444 with their 5-7 medium BT and way smaller provinces?
My point is not to buff those regions in terms of BT, but rather to make more detailed and fun to play.
Did it already =)
there is a significant difference between mountains and hills, no matter of their height, actually, but in general hills are much more passable.
You should definitely check and post here to collect more data for devs =)
I can't believe this topic still goes on... There are way too many "buff my country because it is logical" threads recently.
Eastern Europe was nowhere near in population, population density, or even infrastructure compared to Western Europe, or even the war-torn Balkans. Why would it need any more provincial density as it is now? You can't call a village of 500 the capital of a province after all...
Eastern Europe was nowhere near in population, population density, or even infrastructure compared to Western Europe, or even the war-torn Balkans. Why would it need any more provincial density as it is now? You can't call a village of 500 the capital of a province after all...
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Some of the stuff he's requesting isn't about more provinces, for example the terrain type change in Crimea seems correct.
And by posting in this topic you're bumping it back up, doing exactly what you don't want to do
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