Greatest 'could-have-been' Empires

paskapytty

Hello!

I think this isn't quite the most common type of question in here, and I don't know if this kind of "fishing" is even acceptable. But I do need your help, as I don't know a whole lot about history and I'm not interested in studying it. But I like good stories, who doesn't.

I'm a huge fan of 4X strategy games like Civilization and Europa Universalis series. I think I'm not the only one here, since those are all about alternate history. I like to play a scenario with a historical start, pick an empire from this list, start from its humble beginnings and expand it to its historical borders by waging war, colonizing and whatnot. With healthy amount of artistic freedom of course.

Rewriting a story soon gets dull, so I've been thinking, if I could change the history believably. What could be empires that would have made to the list or to a higher ranking? Only few obvious ones come to my mind and they are Carthage and Germany in World Wars. See? I'm not really good at this. So I need your help.

So...
can you give me some empires that could have become larger, if they had just managed at their efforts (or someone else failed). I don't need any long cause and effect chains. Just briefly state what they could have achieved and what could have been their borders (or just give me some directions where their pursuits would have gone).

And I'm not sure about which forum this would belong to. Please correct it if needed.
 

profxyz

I'm pretty sure any Empire up there could have been made larger if you just edit out a few 'inconvenient' defeats or chances of history. Ok, maybe not the British Empire (though I think it's not unreasonable to believe they could have added Afghanistan to their holdings and perhaps if they had gone to war over Fashoda they would have nicked a bit more of the French Empire), but definitely the Mongol Empire, had Ogadei not died/Mongke not got himself killed in China. In that case, the Mongols might have definitively added Hungary to their list of conquest, maybe Poland and then raiding into Germany. Egypt might well have been taken.

Russian Empire - comprehensive defeat of the incompetent British/French forces at Crimea would have definitely accelerated their assault on the Ottoman Empire/Iran, so they could have gotten more stuff there (plus they wouldn't have sold Alaska).

Spanish Empire - have the Iberian Union persist, so they'd get Portugal as well.

Umayyads - Arabs don't support Leo's revolt against Theodosios, Byzantium continues to crumble amid civil war, Arabs capture Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire is annexed into the Muslim world, allowing for two-pronged invasion of Europe from both Spain and Turkey.

Qing - Have Qianlong ignore the protests of his government and continue on his quest to conquer Central Asia (starting with the Kazakhs) after annihilating the Dzungars.
 

B_Munro

That last one is interesting, since it is actually recent enough to create a "to present day" TL and probably brings China in confrontation with Russia rather earlier, and one wonders how the Afghans and Iranians would react to Chinese on their northern borders...

Bruce
 

Flocculencio

Donor
paskapytty said:
Hello!

I think this isn't quite the most common type of question in here, and I don't know if this kind of "fishing" is even acceptable. But I do need your help, as I don't know a whole lot about history and I'm not interested in studying it. But I like good stories, who doesn't.

I'm a huge fan of 4X strategy games like Civilization and Europa Universalis series. I think I'm not the only one here, since those are all about alternate history. I like to play a scenario with a historical start, pick an empire from this list, start from its humble beginnings and expand it to its historical borders by waging war, colonizing and whatnot. With healthy amount of artistic freedom of course.

Rewriting a story soon gets dull, so I've been thinking, if I could change the history believably. What could be empires that would have made to the list or to a higher ranking? Only few obvious ones come to my mind and they are Carthage and Germany in World Wars. See? I'm not really good at this. So I need your help.

So...
can you give me some empires that could have become larger, if they had just managed at their efforts (or someone else failed). I don't need any long cause and effect chains. Just briefly state what they could have achieved and what could have been their borders (or just give me some directions where their pursuits would have gone).

And I'm not sure about which forum this would belong to. Please correct it if needed.
Click to expand...

The Mughal Empire (pretty great IOTL) could have been even greater if the Emperor Aurangzeb hadn't coem to the throne, but rather his elder brother Dara Shikoh. Unlike Aurangzeb who was a fundamentalist, Dara Shikoh was into a policy of religious tolerance.
 

Municipal Engines

The Kingdom of Hungary under Matthias Corvinus is my favourite. He trounced the Ottomans, became King of Bohemia and conquered Austria, making Vienna his capital. Unfortunately he died without the Hungarian nobility recognising his son as king and the kingdom fell apart, eventually allowing the Hapsburgs to move in and creating the boring ol' Austrian Empire.
 

MarshalBraginsky

Banned
Enduring First or Second Bulgarian Empire could have been one of the longer lasting empires that could have rivaled the Byzantines, even if their lifespan lasted a while.

Serbian Empire under Stefan Dusan also comes into mind.
 

willbell

If Alexander had an heir and had appointed a competent regent (with the cast of characters he was connected to certainly possible) for the empire in the mean time then it is completely reasonable that it could have led to a great empire rather than a great flash-in-the-pan. A 'Macedonian' Empire lasting centuries is something I want to see.
 

Captain Jack

Municipal Engines said:
The Kingdom of Hungary under Matthias Corvinus is my favourite. He trounced the Ottomans, became King of Bohemia and conquered Austria, making Vienna his capital. Unfortunately he died without the Hungarian nobility recognising his son as king and the kingdom fell apart, eventually allowing the Hapsburgs to move in and creating the boring ol' Austrian Empire.
Click to expand...

Mathias Corvinus is my favorite Renaissance monarch. Always struck me as a very enlightened monarch and a shame that his kingdom collapsed on his death.
 

miner249er

The North Sea Empire

a possible one could be The North Sea Empire, the lands ruled by Cnut the Great, in OTL he was unable to consolidate his realm and it fell apart on his death.
red: lands he ruled
orange: Vassels
Yellow: Allied States

The North Sea Empire.png
 

General Mosh

An America more interested in direct colonialism rather than "spreading democracy" probably could have taken parts of Central America and parts of Africa, as well as possibly more of Asia. The Italians could have been a bit more competent in places and added larger parts of Africa to their empire, maybe through an earlier unification (I apologize, I don't know much about that era of history and am likely overlooking some rather obvious fact). The Germans also probably could have added more to their empire, though that may require a POD after the Great War and thus belongs in post 1900.

EDIT: The above, about a 'North Sea Empire', would make a very interesting TL in my opinion.
 

Badshah

A lot of Indian Empires, ranging from the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals, to even smaller regional kingdoms expanding overseas, like Gujarat or Mysore.
 
Hrvatskiwi

Hrvatskiwi

Well, if you are like me, and think that gradual consolidation of polities is pretty much inevitable, then the Mississippian civilisation could've developed into a united empire, as could the Pueblo peoples.

A united Espanophone Latin America would be a great empire.

Majahapit was pretty cool, and it would've been interesting to see a surviving Indonesian Hindu thalassocracy.

The Korean Empire could've been quite significant if it was more involved in Japan, which would probably require stronger Chinese domination of the Manchus.
 

ByzantineLover

* Komnenoi Byzantium and the Kingdoms of Hungary and Croatia (and possibly Wallachia and Moldau) under Bela III/Bela-Alexios. Though how long it would last under a Roman Catholic king/emperor, I don't know.

* A longer-lasting Norman Kingdom of Africa combined with Sicily and possibly Albania, Sardinia, Greece and Macedonia.

* A stronger Latin Empire that manages to beat and expand further into both Nicaea and Bulgaria.

* Khwarezmian Empire without the Mongol invasions. From what I've read, just before the Mongols arrived, Shah Muhammed II was preparing to march on Baghdad and was supposedly leaning toward Shiism (for political purposes only, most likely). If they took Baghdad, where would they have attacked next? Georgia? The Ayyubids? Would Iran have become Shiite earlier?

* An Orthodox Cuman-Kipchak Khanate. OTL, the many Cumans fled to Hungary and were converted to Roman Catholicism under King Bela IV, but I might have read somewhere that the Cumans were close to converting when the Mongols attacked.

* The last one I can really think of is Volga-Bulgaria - a lone island of Muslims between the Christian Russians and those who followed Shamanism, Tengriism and the Finno-Ugric religion.
 

democracy101

Hrvatskiwi said:
The Korean Empire could've been quite significant if it was more involved in Japan, which would probably require stronger Chinese domination of the Manchus.
Click to expand...

Laqueesha said:
Perhaps if it somehow held onto its Manchurian territories?
Click to expand...

Well, I'm currently tackling a TL in which Goguryeo manages to unify the peninsula (which never occurred IOTL), due to a PoD in AD 395, and it will eventually go on to dominate most of East and Central Asia for about 150 years after 530 or so, although it will generally be restricted to what is now Southern Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula soon after.

On the other hand, it would have been unlikely for Gojoseon or Buyeo to do something similar, due to the former's proximity to China, while the latter was quickly overshadowed by Goguryeo around AD 100, which itself had split off due to ideological reasons. In any case, there's barely enough details for either state to draw any concrete conclusions.

Under favorable conditions, either Goryeo or Joseon might have gradually expanded into what became Manchuria, and the former briefly controlled Liaodong under the Yuan's influence, although extensive settlements would take more than just a few centuries to develop. Further territorial expansions after 1800 or so, however, are virtually impossible.
 
Hrvatskiwi

Hrvatskiwi

democracy101 said:
Well, I'm currently tackling a TL in which Goguryeo manages to unify the peninsula (which never occurred IOTL), due to a PoD in AD 395, and it will eventually go on to dominate most of East and Central Asia for about 150 years after 530 or so, although it will generally be restricted to what is now Southern Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula soon after.

On the other hand, it would have been unlikely for Gojoseon or Buyeo to do something similar, due to the former's proximity to China, while the latter was quickly overshadowed by Goguryeo around AD 100, which itself had split off due to ideological reasons. In any case, there's barely enough details for either state to draw any concrete conclusions.

Under favorable conditions, either Goryeo or Joseon might have gradually expanded into what became Manchuria, and the former briefly controlled Liaodong under the Yuan's influence, although extensive settlements would take more than just a few centuries to develop. Further territorial expansions after 1800 or so, however, are virtually impossible.
Click to expand...

Although ancient/medieval East Asian history is one of my least well-known topics, I think that a Korean polity could've dominated Manchuria and Japan IF:

-They were involved in Japan prior to the Shogunate.

-They utilised well their turtle ship and gunpowder advantages.

-Built a Great Wall analogue to the West of the Amur, preventing raids by Mongols and Turks.

-Possibly work with local Ainu allies to weaken Japanese resistance, depending on how early we're talking.
 
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