I'd had to take a break from Claude due to being too close to my weekly usage limit. Now that weekly usage is reset, here are Claude's comments on some of the map names:
Hesse → Rhineland: yes. I’ve changed my mind here. Vendetta’s point holds. On your map, “Hesse” borders Belgium, Holland and Lorraine, and the real Hesse touched none of them. The land along that border was the Rhineland (Rhine Province, Saar, Palatinate). My earlier objection was that Cologne sits in your Ruhr territory, but that matters less than the name contradicting the geography a player sees. I’d keep Ruhr as it is: it’s the name everyone knows for that industrial area, and it’s what players will be bombing.
Bohemia: I’d use “Bohemia-Moravia”. Cernel is right that it was one name, and Vendetta is right that label space matters. But Bohemia is one of the largest territories in that part of the map, so the 15-character name fits without crowding (about 150 pixels in a territory roughly 270 wide). If it ever has to be one word, “Bohemia” is a defensible shorthand. I wouldn’t split it into Bohemia and Moravia; that’s a gameplay change for a naming problem.
Württemberg vs Baden: keep Württemberg, low stakes. Both are defensible, as Cernel says. Stuttgart, the region’s main city, is in Württemberg. “Baden-Württemberg” is too long and dates from 1952. If you want Alsace implied, Baden is fine, but on your map Alsace sits inside French Lorraine anyway.
Silesia and Upper Silesia: the split is deliberate, and it’s yours to defend. You drew the Silesia/Cracow line along the 1922 partition so that the Polish-majority part pays Germany no manpower. That’s why Upper Silesia looks cut in half. Cernel’s connection argument is true for 1941 administrative borders (the annexed Żywiec area did touch Slovakia), not for the population line you chose. The German part of Upper Silesia bordered Moravia, and your Silesia does border Bohemia(-Moravia). I’d keep both the name Silesia and the line, and explain the manpower reason in the thread. Splitting Silesia into Lower (west) and Upper (east) is fine if you want more territories there, but it isn’t needed. It also doesn’t fix Schulz’s Berlin-to-Krakow distance complaint, which is a geometry issue, not a naming one.
Neumark: I’d still keep it. The territory east of Berlin, bordering Pomerania, Silesia and Wartheland, is the old Neumark (Brandenburg east of the Oder). “Southern Pomerania” would name the wrong province. Cernel’s reply doesn’t actually argue this one, so I wouldn’t read it as a strong objection.
Budapest → Hungary: yes. It’s a one-territory country, like Austria and Switzerland.
Ruthenia as a 1-PU territory: worth doing, mildly. It’s historically real (Czechoslovak until 1939, Hungarian in 1941, Soviet after). It also fits your population rule neatly: Rusyn-majority, so it gives Hungary/Germany no manpower. Gameplay-wise, it puts a step between Hungary and Lwow, which is the route the Hungarian army actually took in 1941. The cost is one more small territory. It would mean redrawing tiles like France did, but it’s a small job.
