Wolttaire: Ferdinand of Spain is the monarch currently in control of Gibraltar. Although he’s not as powerful as Henri II or Demetrios III, he’s strong enough that if either tried to bully him, he’d make them really regret it.
There are still places in the Windward/Leeward Islands that haven’t been claimed, plus there are the Caymans, Bahamas, and Turks & Caicos. But the Romans won’t have a very big Caribbean presence. Power projection in this part of the world is a serious issue.
Catconqueror: That would be really nice from Constantinople’s perspective, but one incident in a colonial port isn’t enough to trigger something that massive.
Boa: Some of the earliest history books I remember reading was a series from the local library. They had these strange padded covers. One was about the first two Anglo-Dutch Wars, another was about naval warfare during the Napoleonic War, and the last one I remember was about US-UK naval combat on the high seas (so didn’t include the Great Lakes). Those books were great.
Jamaica is going to the Mexicans. The Romans don’t have nearly enough ground troops to secure a conquest of that size. Any takings in the Windward/Leeward Islands would most likely go to the Romans since they’re smaller and further away from Mexico.
Rui: I am planning Roman-Mexican marriage alliances.
HanEmpire: I had PotC soundtracks playing while I was writing part of this.
TheWanderingReader: Part of the reason for having this update was an excuse to bring him into the TL. I got the inspiration from Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean by Edward Kritzler. And yes, the rum is always gone ITTL as well. Some things are beyond my powers.
Still planning on having the Herakleian Islands be the TTL name for the Philippines, although I never seem to get around to making it official (maybe once the Romans have dominion over the bulk?). They could be called the Herakleians for short; that’s the same length as the Philippines.
Haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do with Mindanao. The Islamization is late enough that I could say it’s weaker than OTL because of butterflies, but there is at least some. Perhaps the Romans rule over Luzon and the other islands directly with the Moros as tributaries, whilst simultaneously strongly ‘encouraging’ them to convert.
I’m open to anyone who wants to do a spinoff. Bad thing about going broad is that it’s hard to go deep, especially in areas in which I’m not that knowledgeable. There might be parameters depending on the topic so it wouldn’t mess with other areas and my long-term plans but I’d try to keep them to a minimum.
Although to be completely honest, I’m not entirely sure how easy I’d be to work with in my creative sandbox; it’s not something I’ve done before, but I know I’d be really picky in my sci-fi universe, although that’s entirely fictional and formed from my imagination rather than having some actual reality behind it.
InMediasRes: To my knowledge, this is the first time I’ve mentioned the War of the Capes, although I’ve had the idea for it a while now.
Khaine: Not knowingly. He’s inspired by the OTL figure Samuel Pallache, who also helped found the Spanish-Jewish community in Amsterdam. Jacob Tirado IOTL was one of the co-founders with him, so I took the name for use ITTL.
Parmenion1: Thanks. That was a fun sentence to write.
Curtain Jerker: There are some slaves in the Empire beside the Cyprus/Crete plantation slaves, used for working in mines and as domestic ‘house slaves’ by the upper crust, but the plantation slaves make up 75+% of the total. And the slave trade to the Empire is built off of feeding the plantations. So with the decline of the plantation slaves, that trade would decline as well. So while slavery in the heartland wouldn’t disappear, something like 80-90% of the numbers would vanish. In 1623 I said there were about 200,000 slaves in the heartland. If the remaining plantations closed up shop now (1633) by 1643 there’d be no more than 30,000 remaining, mostly as domestics.
Couple of places to add to the colony list: Surat (oldest Roman possession in the East) which functions both as a Roman Kephale and a vassal state to the Vijayanagari Emperors, Alappazhu (southern India, in Roman possession for 50 years now) and Christmas Island (recently settled, only mentioned in one line). But Taprobane and the Island Asia Katepanates are where things are really happening; if the Romans tried to expand their land holdings in India proper they would promptly get a boot in the face from the Vijayanagari.
Port Royal is officially Mexican.
Dunois: That is important. For all the talk of ‘these United Kingdoms’ England and France are still joined only by personal union in the person of the monarch. Which is obviously inconvenient. Although integration needs to be done very carefully; if it looks like to the English that they’re going to end up subjugated to a French majority, they will flip the table on the union. They didn’t conquer France just so they could be ruled by the French (I consider that if the Triunes had kept their capital in Paris rather than developing a Channel port as a compromise, the English would already have tried to break away).
One of my goals ITTL is to reduce the lead western & central Europe got over southern & eastern Europe IOTL. Not by screwing west/central Europe preferably, but by just having southern/eastern Europe do better (with some exceptions, a strong Rhomania is going to do everything possible to prevent a unified Italy).
Stark: Triunes have a lot of ATL potential, I agree.
Thank you. I like bringing in those interesting anecdotes from OTL. Plus with them having actually happened, it gives me justification for crazy TTL things too. Now I just need to find a way to work in an alt-Batavia mutiny.
Evilprodigy: Guadeloupe was just a smash-and-grab and then get out. Kraikos didn’t have the forces to hold the island so he didn’t even try.
I am planning on the Romans colonizing Mauritius and Reunion in the next few decades; those are good sugar-growing locales. One issue though I have with the idea of turning interior Syria/Palestine into sugar plantations is the matter of border security. Large slave plantations next to the border with the Ottoman Empire could get nasty. Imagine if the Ottomans invade and promise that all Roman slaves who join them will gain their freedom. Or even just welcoming runaways and occasionally clandestinely encouraging slave revolts at the plantations.
Grammar Kaiser: Thanks. Glad you enjoy it.
Emperor Joe: I would say both no and yes to your comment.
No-there were some unexpected players to the colonial game IOTL. Denmark had colonies in the Caribbean and outposts in India. Sweden had a colony in what’s the US. Brandenburg had trading posts in Africa and briefly had a Caribbean colony. A Baltic state isn’t appreciably further from the Atlantic than a Mediterranean state.
Yes-Rhomania will, by the standards of the Caribbean, be a tiny player. It most certainly will not be one of the big boys. I’m using the OTL Danish West Indies as the level to which the Romans can realistically sustain (the two islands claimed were part of the OTL Danish West Indies). So we’re talking 2-4 small islands. Defending them will be really difficult; the occasional squadron can be sent but Atlantic powers will have a huge advantage in sending reinforcements to the Caribbean. In a hypothetical war between Rhomania and an Atlantic power, most likely the Atlantic power would seize the islands while Rhomania would ideally trash the Atlantic’s eastern territories and use that as leverage to get the islands back in the peace treaty. It’s not the best setup, but I think that’s the best the Romans can count on.
There are still places in the Windward/Leeward Islands that haven’t been claimed, plus there are the Caymans, Bahamas, and Turks & Caicos. But the Romans won’t have a very big Caribbean presence. Power projection in this part of the world is a serious issue.
Catconqueror: That would be really nice from Constantinople’s perspective, but one incident in a colonial port isn’t enough to trigger something that massive.
Boa: Some of the earliest history books I remember reading was a series from the local library. They had these strange padded covers. One was about the first two Anglo-Dutch Wars, another was about naval warfare during the Napoleonic War, and the last one I remember was about US-UK naval combat on the high seas (so didn’t include the Great Lakes). Those books were great.
Jamaica is going to the Mexicans. The Romans don’t have nearly enough ground troops to secure a conquest of that size. Any takings in the Windward/Leeward Islands would most likely go to the Romans since they’re smaller and further away from Mexico.
Rui: I am planning Roman-Mexican marriage alliances.
HanEmpire: I had PotC soundtracks playing while I was writing part of this.
TheWanderingReader: Part of the reason for having this update was an excuse to bring him into the TL. I got the inspiration from Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean by Edward Kritzler. And yes, the rum is always gone ITTL as well. Some things are beyond my powers.
Still planning on having the Herakleian Islands be the TTL name for the Philippines, although I never seem to get around to making it official (maybe once the Romans have dominion over the bulk?). They could be called the Herakleians for short; that’s the same length as the Philippines.
Haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do with Mindanao. The Islamization is late enough that I could say it’s weaker than OTL because of butterflies, but there is at least some. Perhaps the Romans rule over Luzon and the other islands directly with the Moros as tributaries, whilst simultaneously strongly ‘encouraging’ them to convert.
I’m open to anyone who wants to do a spinoff. Bad thing about going broad is that it’s hard to go deep, especially in areas in which I’m not that knowledgeable. There might be parameters depending on the topic so it wouldn’t mess with other areas and my long-term plans but I’d try to keep them to a minimum.
Although to be completely honest, I’m not entirely sure how easy I’d be to work with in my creative sandbox; it’s not something I’ve done before, but I know I’d be really picky in my sci-fi universe, although that’s entirely fictional and formed from my imagination rather than having some actual reality behind it.
InMediasRes: To my knowledge, this is the first time I’ve mentioned the War of the Capes, although I’ve had the idea for it a while now.
Khaine: Not knowingly. He’s inspired by the OTL figure Samuel Pallache, who also helped found the Spanish-Jewish community in Amsterdam. Jacob Tirado IOTL was one of the co-founders with him, so I took the name for use ITTL.
Parmenion1: Thanks. That was a fun sentence to write.
Curtain Jerker: There are some slaves in the Empire beside the Cyprus/Crete plantation slaves, used for working in mines and as domestic ‘house slaves’ by the upper crust, but the plantation slaves make up 75+% of the total. And the slave trade to the Empire is built off of feeding the plantations. So with the decline of the plantation slaves, that trade would decline as well. So while slavery in the heartland wouldn’t disappear, something like 80-90% of the numbers would vanish. In 1623 I said there were about 200,000 slaves in the heartland. If the remaining plantations closed up shop now (1633) by 1643 there’d be no more than 30,000 remaining, mostly as domestics.
Couple of places to add to the colony list: Surat (oldest Roman possession in the East) which functions both as a Roman Kephale and a vassal state to the Vijayanagari Emperors, Alappazhu (southern India, in Roman possession for 50 years now) and Christmas Island (recently settled, only mentioned in one line). But Taprobane and the Island Asia Katepanates are where things are really happening; if the Romans tried to expand their land holdings in India proper they would promptly get a boot in the face from the Vijayanagari.
Port Royal is officially Mexican.
Dunois: That is important. For all the talk of ‘these United Kingdoms’ England and France are still joined only by personal union in the person of the monarch. Which is obviously inconvenient. Although integration needs to be done very carefully; if it looks like to the English that they’re going to end up subjugated to a French majority, they will flip the table on the union. They didn’t conquer France just so they could be ruled by the French (I consider that if the Triunes had kept their capital in Paris rather than developing a Channel port as a compromise, the English would already have tried to break away).
One of my goals ITTL is to reduce the lead western & central Europe got over southern & eastern Europe IOTL. Not by screwing west/central Europe preferably, but by just having southern/eastern Europe do better (with some exceptions, a strong Rhomania is going to do everything possible to prevent a unified Italy).
Stark: Triunes have a lot of ATL potential, I agree.
Thank you. I like bringing in those interesting anecdotes from OTL. Plus with them having actually happened, it gives me justification for crazy TTL things too. Now I just need to find a way to work in an alt-Batavia mutiny.
Evilprodigy: Guadeloupe was just a smash-and-grab and then get out. Kraikos didn’t have the forces to hold the island so he didn’t even try.
I am planning on the Romans colonizing Mauritius and Reunion in the next few decades; those are good sugar-growing locales. One issue though I have with the idea of turning interior Syria/Palestine into sugar plantations is the matter of border security. Large slave plantations next to the border with the Ottoman Empire could get nasty. Imagine if the Ottomans invade and promise that all Roman slaves who join them will gain their freedom. Or even just welcoming runaways and occasionally clandestinely encouraging slave revolts at the plantations.
Grammar Kaiser: Thanks. Glad you enjoy it.
Emperor Joe: I would say both no and yes to your comment.
No-there were some unexpected players to the colonial game IOTL. Denmark had colonies in the Caribbean and outposts in India. Sweden had a colony in what’s the US. Brandenburg had trading posts in Africa and briefly had a Caribbean colony. A Baltic state isn’t appreciably further from the Atlantic than a Mediterranean state.
Yes-Rhomania will, by the standards of the Caribbean, be a tiny player. It most certainly will not be one of the big boys. I’m using the OTL Danish West Indies as the level to which the Romans can realistically sustain (the two islands claimed were part of the OTL Danish West Indies). So we’re talking 2-4 small islands. Defending them will be really difficult; the occasional squadron can be sent but Atlantic powers will have a huge advantage in sending reinforcements to the Caribbean. In a hypothetical war between Rhomania and an Atlantic power, most likely the Atlantic power would seize the islands while Rhomania would ideally trash the Atlantic’s eastern territories and use that as leverage to get the islands back in the peace treaty. It’s not the best setup, but I think that’s the best the Romans can count on.
