What about the jews?

[Tunch Khan]

Salonica doesn't make up the whole of that province so it shouldn't have Jewish Culture. Even if it did have Jewish culture i doubt it could also have Jewish religion because the majority religion would probably still be orthodox (Greeks and Bulgarians would make up more than the Jews).

You think the province was littered with thousands of villages packed with Orthodox paseants in 15th century? Salonika was a major trading port and gate to the Balkans for many centuries, and the main language on the streets was Ladino (Old Castillan and Hebrew). The province's rural population was no match for the foremost metropolitan city of the post-medieval thriving urban Selanik.

(Note:the city fell to Turks and was Turkified in 1430, but shortly after the Jews became the dominant majority. BUT: there were significant Byzantine Jews residing in the city before the Turkish conquest.)

 

[lordy80011]

It makes a great difference whether you use it to merely spread the same document,e.g. the Koran, over and over again. Or works of science and technology or even rebellion (though that might have been a bit hard in the Empire).

It is an important advancement regardless of *what* is being printed. The widespread dissemination of the Quran into places in the Ottoman Empire where it had never before been, and the ability to access it at a lower cost paints it as being quite a significant change over the period prior to the printing press.

 

[Dinsdale]

One of the reasons Victoria failed IMHO where EU excelled, was that it took fine-grained information and applied it to coarse-grained game rules. Whether one pop in Danzig were Polish clerks German factory workers made relatively little difference to grand scheme of things, and rather than feeling like a ruler, too much of the game could have been renamed Sim Factory Administration. In the end, the worthless minutia became tedious and wasn't interesting enough to fight through the grossly imbalanced economic system.

Unfortunately, many of the suggestions in this forum, particularly with requests such as the OP of this thread, looks to repeat fine grained historic detail for the sake of it, ignoring, except for some mild historic flavour, any practical influence such a suggestion would have on the game. Unless there's some specific issue that governing Salonika might present if I played the Ottomans, what could cause me to care less about the ethnicity of a city within a province?

The game should feel like juggling on a tightrope while neighbours throw rocks at you, the tension from making broad based policy decisions and detailed military excursions. Any issue which wouldn't make it onto page 1 of a fictional priority item list for a supreme executive during the period, is at best a waste of time, and at worst a distracting attempt at creating busy-work because the overall game doesn't retain a players interest.

I love complexity, and I would relish a meaty manual of information to rummage through before being able to decipher the game, but complexity must add value, otherwise it's simply excess baggage.

Sorry to pick on this thread/idea, but having skimmed through a half dozen contentious threads, including 10+pages on the injustice of PTI, I sincerely hope that Paradox are actively avoiding any of the suggestions in this forum lest one of the greatest games ever made turns it's third iteration into an unplayable camel.

 

[Emre Yigit]

It makes a great difference whether you use it to merely spread the same document,e.g. the Koran, over and over again. Or works of science and technology or even rebellion (though that might have been a bit hard in the Empire).

The first book printed at that press was, IIRC, the Pentateuch. I do agree that there is a difference between printing the same old boring stuff and more challenging works, but frankly, the first century or so of book printing was heavily slanted in favour of religion and philosophy, everywhere. I really don't know what they were printing c1600 I'll check when next I go to Bursa.

More details on the population of Thessaloniki.... Census data show a majority of Jews in the city and a plurality elsewhere. It depends how you define the province, of course, and I would guess the EU2 province might not have a Jewish plurality (but it would be the first candidate for the top slot, rather than Greek or Turkish, say). But the Vic one most certainly would.

BTW what I mean by census data is Ottoman-style censuses, counting households rather than people. But I guess it works out roughly the same.

Salonica doesn't make up the whole of that province so it shouldn't have Jewish Culture. Even if it did have Jewish culture i doubt it could also have Jewish religion because the majority religion would probably still be orthodox (Greeks and Bulgarians would make up more than the Jews).

Have Jewish as culture and orthodox as religion? And I'm not sure that the data suggests that Greek + Bulgarian outnumbered Jewish + Turkish - at least not in 1520-1700 or so. And I also agree with Tunch's comments.

 

[Vharzul]

Off-hand I can only think of Samuel and David Nahmes, founders, first Ottoman press, 1494, Bursa. But I have a funny feeling that neither then, nor 20 years later, were the sultans drooling over mere technology. On the other hand, printing is fairly important, nyet?

Well First Printing press was done by Johannes Gutenberg in 1436 in Europe, Germany. But first was invented in China in 868 CE with the book "Diamond Sutra" iirc, and In 1041, movable clay type was first invented in China. Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press with replaceable wooden or metal letters in 1436 (completed by 1440)

source: Link

Though your probably right about it being exported to the Ottaman Empire, thats no real bases to have Jews in the game as persay, as the Ottamans i think already knew of Printing press due to thier trade links to the Far East i think, and hance make your argument nul void i think.

 

[unmerged(55601)]

To Havard


Jews are very often associated with abuse of revenue, but banking , in truth , accelerated economic growth in host countries and subsequently influenced transfer of technology.

For example :

In the month of July, 1198, Philip Augustus, "contrary to the general expectation and despite his own edict, recalled the Jews to Paris and made the churches of God suffer great persecutions" (Rigord). The king adopted this measure from no good will toward the Jews, for he had shown his true sentiments a short time before in the Bray affair. But since then he had learned that the Jews could be an excellent source of income from a fiscal point of view, especially as money-lenders. Not only did he recall them to his estates, but he gave state sanction by his ordinances to their operations in banking and pawnbroking.

James de Rothschild played a major role in financing the construction of railroads and the mining business that helped make France an industrial power.

Or even influenced historical events:

From 1813 to 1815, the Rothschild family was instrumental in the financing of the British war effort, handling the shipment of bullion to the Duke of Wellington's army in Spain, as well as arranging the payment of British financial subsidies to their Continental allies.

Also:

By a French historian : "The expulsion of 1306 was, taking all things into account, practically the revocation of the Edict of Nantes issued by the Louis XIV of the Middle Ages [i.e., Philip the Fair]. In striking at the Jews. Philip the Fair at the same time dried up one of the most fruitful sources of the financial, commercial, and industrial prosperity of his kingdom".


So I do not think that migration of Jews should give some specific technology ,but it should give some advantage in tech developement.

 

[unmerged(485)]

None of those events mentioned are in the EU time frame.

 

[unmerged(55601)]

Ok just see chapter Oliver Cromwell or chapter Resettlement of the Jews in England in Wikipedia .
Or beter nothing , they did not play any important part in great history of Europe.
Also I would like skirmish option for every nation I don t like ,no money is needed for reward.Skirmish option is reward by itself.

 

[Emre Yigit]

I agree with Dusan. The economic benefits were definitely an inducement and by no means limited to money lending. Remember that the exclusion of Jews from many professions is an European phenomenon not necessarily repeated elsewhere.

None of those events mentioned are in the EU time frame.

Time: 1490s. Event: Spain getting uncomfortable for the Jews. Comment by the Sultan: "How can you call Ferdinand of Aragon a wise king when he impoverishes his own land and enriches ours?", gives orders to his governors (yes, he had the necessary tech!) to welcome them, and even sends a few ships to escort them to the OE.

Jewish source

Turco-Jewish source

Greek source

Bible Thumpers, Inc.

The Jews who fled from Spain brought relatively little capital - coz they couldn't - but their knowledge and know-how did much to enhance the economic and social life of the OE. So much so, that this Turk feels they simply must be included in EU3 as the plurality religion of Salonika province, for which there is anyway ample proof.

 

[unmerged(2833)]

You think the province was littered with thousands of villages packed with Orthodox paseants in 15th century? Salonika was a major trading port and gate to the Balkans for many centuries, and the main language on the streets was Ladino (Old Castillan and Hebrew). The province's rural population was no match for the foremost metropolitan city of the post-medieval thriving urban Selanik.

(Note:the city fell to Turks and was Turkified in 1430, but shortly after the Jews became the dominant majority. BUT: there were significant Byzantine Jews residing in the city before the Turkish conquest.)

I am pretty sure that there is no single province in EU where rural population wasn't large majority, during whole timeframe. Or, perhaps there are few rare instances like lategame Anglia province?

Anyway, certainly not Salonika province, which probably was indeed littered with hundreds of orthodox greek and slavic villages in the countryside.

 

[Enravota]

I would actually claim that "villages packed with Orthodox paseants", some of which were incidently my ancestors, were pretty numerous and outnumbered the Jewish population of the city of Salonika itself. Even now villages in that area of Greece are pretty common, though most of the population of the country lives in Athens and Salonika. If you look only at the city populations, then all of the OE Balkas should be Turkish, cause Orthodoxal people preffered to live in the villages, as far as posible from authority (to be red cities), and this was a tendency almost for the whole of Ottoman rule on the Balkans. So claiming that Macedonia (which is the EUII province which contains the city of Salonika) or its Aegean part should be Jewish is laughable.

 

[Emre Yigit]

I am pretty sure that there is no single province in EU where rural population wasn't large majority, during whole timeframe. Or, perhaps there are few rare instances like lategame Anglia province?

The provinces wherein Constantinople and Cairo were situated would probably qualify well before Anglia, for most of the period. But I agree re: Salonica.

Laughable

Illuminating in its explanatory powerl and utterly convincing.


For goodness sake, guys, in EU2 we're talking about a map which places the Ottoman capital in 1419-1453 in Bursa coz there's not enough room, apparently, for a mini-province for Constantinople. So, I really don't know for certain whether the EU "province of Macedonia" had a Jewish, Turkish, Greek, Bulgarian or Hindu majority. I'm just stating that where there are census records they point to a Jewish plurality from the early 16th century onwards. Moreover, looking at devshirme records, the incidence of recruitment from "Macedonia" is not so high as to suggest that Christians formed the overwhelming bulk of the population there - in the villages. Nor do tax surveys of non-moslem minorities. I think everyone will grant that the Ottomans - at least initially - did a fairly thorough job of taxing and recruiting. Does anyone who doesn't like my explanation / suggestion have anything to back them up? Say, archival or (even) baptismal records?

Moreover, remember that EU is essentially about cities, not villages. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you didn't see many Vauban-style fortifications, governors' offices, tax offices, etc in villages. So essentially, this "the Jews were outnumbered by the population in the villages" is a red herring, even if true - which I do not concede.

And the next time you're in Istanbul, take a detour to the Imperial Archives. If they let you in, you can probably find how many sheep or goats your great-greatx18 grandfather possessed, what the production of textiles by his female relatives was, and whether he had any relatives in the civil service, his access to drinking water and how much he paid in taxes and how much he was assumed to hide. Think Domesday Book on a massively more detailed scale, and you may begin to grasp the detail of the archives. An empire covering 18 modern countries in full, plus substantial chunks of at least 5 other countries, did not run itself on luck or lack of attention to these important (!) things.

Or, you can laugh, but, then, without comparable records, what else could you do?

 

[Innocent]

Hypothetically, even if there were two entire provinces that were majority Jewish, would there be a justification to include Judaism as one of the religion categories in the game even though there was not a single Jewish state that existed during this time frame?

 

[Emre Yigit]

Hypothetically, even if there were two entire provinces that were majority Jewish, would there be a justification to include Judaism as one of the religion categories in the game even though there was not a single Jewish state that existed during this time frame?

If you can have Canarian, whyever not Jewish?

 

[Innocent]

If you can have Canarian, whyever not Jewish?

Thought we were talking about religion not culture.

Addendum: Just to make it clear, I think the idea of "Jewish Culture" may be reasonable, though I wonder if Salonika could be called "Jewish" in 1600 and 1700 as well? This is not a topic I am familiar with beyond know that the Turks accepted an influx of Jews in the early 16th century.

 

[Emre Yigit]

Apologies. I got confused.

As I stated only half-jokingly in a previous post on this thread, Jewish culture plus Orthodox religion would probably simulate the situation in Macedonia best.

And, aye, Salonila could easily be called Jewish in 1600 (probably its peak of "Jewishness") then less and less as time went by. But without massive population movements, if you assume that everyone bred at roughly the same rate, then you could assume the status quo would endure until the mid-18th century. Who became the plurality population then, I'll leave the Macedonians, Greeks and Bulgars to fight out. This topic has already become too bruising for me.

 

[Innocent]

Apologies. I got confused.

As I stated only half-jokingly in a previous post on this thread, Jewish culture plus Orthodox religion would probably simulate the situation in Macedonia best.

And, aye, Salonila could easily be called Jewish in 1600 (probably its peak of "Jewishness") then less and less as time went by. But without massive population movements, if you assume that everyone bred at roughly the same rate, then you could assume the status quo would endure until the mid-18th century. Who became the plurality population then, I'll leave the Macedonians, Greeks and Bulgars to fight out. This topic has already become too bruising for me.

Balkan cultural politics are never truly fun... well Jewish culture may fit, I don't know, I could accept that worth consideration, I just didn't think the idea of a Jewish religion made sense in the game.

 

[Tunch Khan]

Wether if Judaism is going to appear in EUIII or not; or as a culture or as a religion; Ottomans should get it as a culture or high tolerance towards it through events. This should also give them substantial benefits.

 

[unmerged(52196)]

There are Jews in Crusader kings. In EU only majority religions were represented and the jewish religion was not a majority in any of those regions in the EU timeframe.

Some regions of Ethiopia might have been predominant Jewish during the EU timeframe (the Felashi people).

 

[Havard]

One of the reasons Victoria failed IMHO where EU excelled, was that it took fine-grained information and applied it to coarse-grained game rules. Whether one pop in Danzig were Polish clerks German factory workers made relatively little difference to grand scheme of things, and rather than feeling like a ruler, too much of the game could have been renamed Sim Factory Administration. In the end, the worthless minutia became tedious and wasn't interesting enough to fight through the grossly imbalanced economic system.

Unfortunately, many of the suggestions in this forum, particularly with requests such as the OP of this thread, looks to repeat fine grained historic detail for the sake of it, ignoring, except for some mild historic flavour, any practical influence such a suggestion would have on the game. Unless there's some specific issue that governing Salonika might present if I played the Ottomans, what could cause me to care less about the ethnicity of a city within a province?

The game should feel like juggling on a tightrope while neighbours throw rocks at you, the tension from making broad based policy decisions and detailed military excursions. Any issue which wouldn't make it onto page 1 of a fictional priority item list for a supreme executive during the period, is at best a waste of time, and at worst a distracting attempt at creating busy-work because the overall game doesn't retain a players interest.

I love complexity, and I would relish a meaty manual of information to rummage through before being able to decipher the game, but complexity must add value, otherwise it's simply excess baggage.

Sorry to pick on this thread/idea, but having skimmed through a half dozen contentious threads, including 10+pages on the injustice of PTI, I sincerely hope that Paradox are actively avoiding any of the suggestions in this forum lest one of the greatest games ever made turns it's third iteration into an unplayable camel.

This is a great post that everyone here should read and keep in mind when discussing EU3.