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Therion

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If we could hypothetically modify the map, what province changes would you want to see?

For starters, we could remove useless tiny provinces like Massa and Lauenburg, re-introduce African PTI and split back all European rivers.

In terms of province additions, I was thinking of East Friesland, Sundgau, Urbino and maybe one additional Serbian province (Syrmia?) so that Belgrade could be ceded to Hungary with the ascension of Durad Brankovic.
 
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I would add Polesia for Lithuania (for the reasons I mentioned in terrains thread). May be also check some borders in this area. I can make a sketch if there would be such possibility to fix map.
 
Edit: Also, the Balkan setup of MyMap could be copied... :wub:

We probably cannot add as many provinces in Europe unless the regional limit is removed.

I would add Polesia for Lithuania (for the reasons I mentioned in terrains thread). May be also check some borders in this area. I can make a sketch if there would be such possibility to fix map.
At the moment, there is only one person who can do this fix so I'm hoping he agrees. If not we'll have to await another mapmaker to spring from somewhere ... or just forget about it.
 
What about having Sicily as one province (396) and use the 395 province for Calabria? Thus changing capitanata (934) for abruzzi and 394 for proper Apulia only?

Or just one province Sicily to free another province ID for Europe?
 
I love the fact there's a city called Norman. :D
 
What about having Sicily as one province (396) and use the 395 province for Calabria? Thus changing capitanata (934) for abruzzi and 394 for proper Apulia only?

Or just one province Sicily to free another province ID for Europe?

does this give Naples an extra province?
 
If we could hypothetically modify the map, what province changes would you want to see?

For starters, we could remove useless tiny provinces like Massa and Lauenburg, re-introduce African PTI and split back all European rivers.

In terms of province additions, I was thinking of East Friesland, Sundgau, Urbino and maybe one additional Serbian province (Syrmia?) so that Belgrade could be ceded to Hungary with the ascension of Durad Brankovic.

agree to all except the serbian one, especially since zeta has gained independence
 
In terms of province additions, I was thinking of East Friesland (...)

I'm Dutch, but adding East Friesland would be a seriously bad idea. This area is simply too unremarkable in the time period to be given a province. If you want provinces to truly represent the power of count(r)ies, you should consider adding another province to Flanders, Gent, one of the biggest cities of Europe during the beginning of the time frame of Plvs Vltra. Adding another province to Holland, which could be called Leiden or Delft is also a better idea then East Friesland. Both additions would allow for a more spectacular and balanced 80-years war.
 
I'm Dutch, but adding East Friesland would be a seriously bad idea. This area is simply too unremarkable in the time period to be given a province. If you want provinces to truly represent the power of count(r)ies, you should consider adding another province to Flanders, Gent, one of the biggest cities of Europe during the beginning of the time frame of Plvs Vltra. Adding another province to Holland, which could be called Leiden or Delft is also a better idea then East Friesland. Both additions would allow for a more spectacular and balanced 80-years war.

IMO, adding another province to the Netherlands makes it too strong. Your reasoning would only help earlier scenarios for historical gameplay, ...but so would adding east friesland
 
IMO, adding another province to the Netherlands makes it too strong. Your reasoning would only help earlier scenarios for historical gameplay, ...but so would adding east friesland
Therion planned to remove Utrecht. So effectivly the Netherlands would still have the same number of provinces.
 
Also, the Balkan setup of MyMap could be copied... :wub:

I would tend to agree -- I have a pretty deep interest in Ottoman history and the immediate pre-Ottoman and post-Ottoman periods in the Balkans; the MyMap organization of provinces in that region is, actually, nearly perfect for the time period covered in the game. Although I see there is discussion on province limits, I will say that if such issues could be steered around, I would keep the Balkans (everything south of the Magyar provinces in Hungary, which I think might be comparatively too numerous in MyMap) the same as in MyMap, but add two Greek islands as their own provinces: Thasos and Samos. Thasos could exist as an island without a port (although I'm not sure if there are there any of those in EU2 or FTG?) as it was never really used as an offensive naval base, as such, and giving it this quality would reduce the effectiveness for another country to try to take it as a base against the Ottomans, preventing certain types of game imbalance issues) but should be a rich province (with metals as its resource); Samos would be a good addition as at points it enjoyed autonomy, and could be a one-province vassal the Ottomans could optionally release.
 
(although Wallachia shouldn't be moutainous as it is in MyMap)

Thasos as a separate province actually is briefly under Egyptian control late in the Ottoman period (gained at the same time they gained Crete, both as rewards from the Sultan for fighting against Greek independence from the Ottomans) -- just to highlight a certain geopolitical significance, late in the Ottoman period in Salonika certain "modernizing" types looked to the Egyptian regime as an example of a Muslim country successfully implementing European industrialization; certain very extreme radicals even hoped Egypt could win a war against the Ottomans and accomplish some sort of regime change through that. (Some of this is documented in Mazower's volume on Salonika.) The Egyptians didn't hold Thasos very long (it probably should be the sort of province that would be difficult for any power outside the immediate region from being able to control), but theoretically it's a chessboard position that can have significance. (One could imagine the Egyptians having held the island longer, then it having a greater significance if Egypt were ever aligned with any western powers in war against the Ottomans.)

Although in general, if alterations are going to be made, I wouldn't add ports to provinces which have them in MyMap but don't in Watkbaoi (Thessaly, Epirus, etc). Cattaro should definitely be a separate province with a port, though, regardless of exactly whether borders are drawn closer to the MyMap or Watkbaoi.
 
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Although, to be clear, provinces like Thasos and Samos could really only occur if the discussed region limit were removed, and if that were occurring alongside more provinces being added in a lot of places (so as not to distort balance), which would possibly mean something more like a complete map reconstruction rather than editing an existing map. That is to say, new Greek island provinces would be low priorities even in the Balkans/Greece region (except in a very sweeping reimagining of the entire world map and province scheme as a larger project achieved after province limits are steered around). In a more limited updating, Cattaro and Syrmia would definitely be the two provinces I'd add in the Balkans.
 
Ok, and now I've played extensively on Plvs Vltra as it stands as both the Ottoman Empire and Venice. I'd say the overall game experience is extremely different than on MyMap, and without necessarily having anticipated this ahead of time, much more historically sensible. There's some philosophical question on exactly what we're symbolizing in historical-spatial terms for each province, and what degree of historical exactness involved in terms of what spaces occasionally may have shifted from one temporal power to another at moments need to be sacrificed to accomplish a sort of map which itself would lead to the most historical game-play mechanics. Overall at this point I think that the Plvs Vltra map is actually superior to MyMap in terms of both Balkans and Italian gameplay, with the smaller number of Balkans provinces actually enhancing the game experience. Separating Cattaro from Zeta is still plausible, and adding Syrmia also would not be especially implausible, but two provinces rather than three for Bosnia and two rather than four Croatian provinces, the positioning of Macedonia, and several other issues definitely lead to more historically accurate game scenarios than in MyMap.

Urbino seems like it would also be a good addition. I actually appreciate the existence of the Massa province in Italy, as it adds some sense of Italy being a "big" place (if not geographically, definitely politically) at that time. I'd also note that after having mostly played on MyMap since FTG was released, that having two provinces for Sicily as on the present Plvs Vltra map does add some depth and (contrary to above where fewer Balkans provinces made for a more generally historically-plausible game) historical plausibility to the Mediterranean game; that is, Sicily can become too tempting of a target for the Ottomans to hold when it's just a single province -- taken as two provinces, even if you play as the Ottomans and win a big war against Spain and take the whole island, it's more much more sensible at that point to release it as a vassal. Sicily was held by Muslims at early points, but for the Ottomans to be able to hold it as easily as in MyMap might not be especially plausible.

I would as a sort of experimental project enjoy seeing an extremely detailed FTG map which attempts to add as many provinces as possible, taking into account maximum historical depth (I mean, that could involve even separating Salonika from the Macedonian hinterland, etc) after region limits are lifted, while still maintaining a game balance and general historical plausibility, but the present mod appears to not be that project.
 
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Cheers for the inputs. At this point, the prospect of modifying this map is looking less likely. I guess I'd better stick to it and finish updating the events.