Fishing for map ideas
- Thread starter B_Munro
- Start date
Some alternate Cold War thing.
Or maybe a "what if ancient civilizations still dominated the present day"?
"Mercantile wank", instead of colonial empires like Spain or England, world is dominated by Venice, Genoa, Hanseatic cities and/or Netherlands...
(I would try to do it myself, but normal boring worlda maps combined with my very limited skills doesn´t seem to be good for representing world made up not from space-filling states and empires but of various trading posts, maritime and landroutes and layers of influence...)
Piggybacking off the mercantile wank here are a couple ideas
1) A world where Southern Europe dominates the colonial game in the early modern era. Genoa, Venice, an independent Occitania, perhaps. Not the most plausible, but it could be interesting.
2) A map with a very early POD where the Polynesians roll 6s and spread across the world from early on.
1) A world where Southern Europe dominates the colonial game in the early modern era. Genoa, Venice, an independent Occitania, perhaps. Not the most plausible, but it could be interesting.
2) A map with a very early POD where the Polynesians roll 6s and spread across the world from early on.
Ah, now that would be interesting... it sort of begs the question though, of how long an amiable relation could be maintained between the two
I have a suspicion that something would sunder the "bromance" at some point
Isaac's Empire to get your treatment if possible, something completely out there like this paradox games campaign.
. Another idea Jesus christ appears during the time of Alexander the great and the pagan gods disappear and a new religion formed by the messiah's appearance and his rebirth changes the state of the world. Another idea a African Napoleon conquers half the world the rest is up to you.
An international zone around the Straits of Gibraltar on both the Spanish and Moroccan sides.
I once had a project where I imagined European republics not rising out of urban enlightenment bourgeois thought but out of an enlarged peasant rebellion in Germany, so you get all these earlier republics focused on freeing Serfs, redistributing land, and all that, but they’re also likely less centralized at least initially. They’d also likely have religious reform as a major focus if they rose out of something like the Peasant’s War in the 1520s.
This also included ideas such as having urban merchants switch to siding with the peasants at the end of the war to regain access to their supply of raw materials, having the Hussites make a resurgence during the war, and having a peasant Poland called the Robot Republic/Robotnik Republic after the Polish word for labourer.
Since I’ve left it on the back burner, feel free to take ideas as you please if they interest you.
This also included ideas such as having urban merchants switch to siding with the peasants at the end of the war to regain access to their supply of raw materials, having the Hussites make a resurgence during the war, and having a peasant Poland called the Robot Republic/Robotnik Republic after the Polish word for labourer.
Since I’ve left it on the back burner, feel free to take ideas as you please if they interest you.
I was thinking of suggesting a cover/take for the divergences of darkness mod from Victoria 2, before reading the "not covers of other people's works" bit 😅
Anyways, if not the mod itself, it has a number of interesting Age of Exploration/early modern era PODS you could run away with, on your own take, etc, mix and match (take some and leave others out, depending on plausibility or your personal definition of "fun"), including;
- a Anglo-French "dual monarchy", arising from a different conclusion to the Hundred Years war, while French dominated, increasingly develops a creolized culture (taking more French elements than English, IIRC, given the population disparity factor, especially in 1450-odd, but still would send any modern Frenchman in horror over cultural weirdness). perhaps too implausible?
- a surviving Burgundy (another byproduct of an alt-Hundred Years War), essentially main colonial rival to the DM. Holds chunks of France that the DM doesn't, kind of like a roided up Netherlands really.
- Isabella marries a Portuguese prince, which leads to a Portuguese-Castilian union, but one that leaves Aragon out. "Spain" still ends up as a major colonial power, if not as strong as you'd think, and eventually ends up somewhat assimilating Portugal - think, England to Ireland
(according to the game, anyhow).
Aragon/Catalonia keeps its Italian lands, and also gets some colonial turf of its own, but as a "minor" rather than major player. (In a more "Sweden, Denmark, Scotland", way than "Portugal or Netherlands", etc, during the age of exploration: just minor Caribbean isles and Indian forts and trading stations, really, excepting North Africa anyways)
- Speaking of the Scandinavians, Sweden, Denmark and Norway maintain their personal unions, and eventually unite into Scandinavia, another major colonial power and top interventionist asshole in disunited Germany.
- Eastern Europe is... different. Strong and surviving Poland-Lithuania, a still divided and quarreling Russia (Muscovy and Novgorod in the game: Russia was apparently, DESPOTIC ORIENTALISM GOGGLES ACTIVATE, frozen in time since the 15th or so century). Beyond Russia, Siberia is as yet still unconquered, and khanates still dot the steppes.
- Italy, Balkans, etc: Venice survives and is indeed something of a colonial power (between/in the middle of "Sweden" and "Netherlands" in terms of small-sized-state-colonial-stature), while the South is still controlled by the Aragonese. Rest, mostly the same. The Ottomans are doing a bit better without the threat of a united and stronk Russia on their eastern corridor, but have lost (or never conquered) large chunks of Balkan turf in any case, and Egypt has ran off from home regardless.
- North America is more divided, with no one major settler-colony, the US OTL, emerging as the principal power: there are the Castilian-Portuguese in Mexico, but there's a "Vinland" in the north (Scandinavian colony, not surviving Leif Erikson outpost - just took a common name), a Burgundian colony in roughly the Northeast, New York, New England, etc, area, a Dual Monarchy one in the South.
- South America is also similarly a lot more colorful, with a still surviving (in the South) Incan empire, or something approximating it anyway, Spanish colonies in the north, Burgundian and Franco-English/Dual Monarchy colonies in the Brazil area. There's even an "exiled" English colony in the Southern Cone, taking up much of what OTL would be northern Argentina (to their horror), very traditionally English and all that, not really a fan of the really rather Francified Olde England, charting its own weird path. (Fairly sparsely populated)
- Africa, by 1800s-odd, doesn't have much in the way ofparticularly notable divergences (heh). Aragonese/Catalonian, Spanish coastal footholds (fairly far into the inland, really more accurately legholds by this point) in northern Africa, particularly Morocco and Algeria. Colonialism, besides North Africa, is mostly around the same stage as OTL. No notable African civs, unfortunately. I'll let you make assumptions for which country got the Cape.
- Iran is divided, apparently - the North is still Khanate-dominated, IIRC, while a surviving (Taiwan-like) "authenthic Persian" state survives in the south.
- ... and also India, with something like the Mughals (yes, with a, 1400s pod: just assume its "close enough" for practical work), a Bengali nation, and other sorts of divided states here and there in the subcontinent still existin', and chillin'. Some European colonies dot the coasts, but nowhere near as dominant as the historical British Raj.
- and... China. After exploring for a bit (establishing surviving settler colonies in Australia and America), the country collapsed in civil war, has yet to reunite, and is, IIRC, only about somewhat more advanced than it's OTL version at the time (perhaps thanks to the interstate competition and being more open to foreign advances). Its now-independent colonies (mostly all gone, although I think one of the southern Chinese states controls part of the Philippines) in western North America and Australia, on the other hand, are much more modern (fully "civilized"), if still a bit behind in tech, IIRC, to the more modern European and European settler countries. Some overseas Chinese talk of reunifying the homeland.... from there.
- And then, there's an early-modernized Japan, one that never went isolationist, as modern as any other European state on the planet, with colonies in eastern Siberia and Alaska, (and not to mention Korea). Basically: it's where it was at in 1940-odd OTL, just about an entire century earlier.
the dates are by 1840, just to be clear: not that you'd necessarily need to date the map there - heck you could push it to the twentieth century or even modern day for all really. all up to you if you wanna do these ideas
(if you do decide taking this one up, it'd actually be pretty interesting to see how your vision would line up differently with the actual mod, provided I haven't spoiled too much of it already. if you are curious about some of the specific details, particularly geographical, here's (warning: obviously spoilers) the actual link to the mod page. and here's a wiki history page for the mod. but, of course, otoh, that might conflict with your whole wish to do an original scenario, if you wanna take just the broader ideas)
Anyways, if not the mod itself, it has a number of interesting Age of Exploration/early modern era PODS you could run away with, on your own take, etc, mix and match (take some and leave others out, depending on plausibility or your personal definition of "fun"), including;
- a Anglo-French "dual monarchy", arising from a different conclusion to the Hundred Years war, while French dominated, increasingly develops a creolized culture (taking more French elements than English, IIRC, given the population disparity factor, especially in 1450-odd, but still would send any modern Frenchman in horror over cultural weirdness). perhaps too implausible?
- a surviving Burgundy (another byproduct of an alt-Hundred Years War), essentially main colonial rival to the DM. Holds chunks of France that the DM doesn't, kind of like a roided up Netherlands really.
- Isabella marries a Portuguese prince, which leads to a Portuguese-Castilian union, but one that leaves Aragon out. "Spain" still ends up as a major colonial power, if not as strong as you'd think, and eventually ends up somewhat assimilating Portugal - think, England to Ireland
(according to the game, anyhow).
Aragon/Catalonia keeps its Italian lands, and also gets some colonial turf of its own, but as a "minor" rather than major player. (In a more "Sweden, Denmark, Scotland", way than "Portugal or Netherlands", etc, during the age of exploration: just minor Caribbean isles and Indian forts and trading stations, really, excepting North Africa anyways)
- Speaking of the Scandinavians, Sweden, Denmark and Norway maintain their personal unions, and eventually unite into Scandinavia, another major colonial power and top interventionist asshole in disunited Germany.
- Eastern Europe is... different. Strong and surviving Poland-Lithuania, a still divided and quarreling Russia (Muscovy and Novgorod in the game: Russia was apparently, DESPOTIC ORIENTALISM GOGGLES ACTIVATE, frozen in time since the 15th or so century). Beyond Russia, Siberia is as yet still unconquered, and khanates still dot the steppes.
- Italy, Balkans, etc: Venice survives and is indeed something of a colonial power (between/in the middle of "Sweden" and "Netherlands" in terms of small-sized-state-colonial-stature), while the South is still controlled by the Aragonese. Rest, mostly the same. The Ottomans are doing a bit better without the threat of a united and stronk Russia on their eastern corridor, but have lost (or never conquered) large chunks of Balkan turf in any case, and Egypt has ran off from home regardless.
- North America is more divided, with no one major settler-colony, the US OTL, emerging as the principal power: there are the Castilian-Portuguese in Mexico, but there's a "Vinland" in the north (Scandinavian colony, not surviving Leif Erikson outpost - just took a common name), a Burgundian colony in roughly the Northeast, New York, New England, etc, area, a Dual Monarchy one in the South.
- South America is also similarly a lot more colorful, with a still surviving (in the South) Incan empire, or something approximating it anyway, Spanish colonies in the north, Burgundian and Franco-English/Dual Monarchy colonies in the Brazil area. There's even an "exiled" English colony in the Southern Cone, taking up much of what OTL would be northern Argentina (to their horror), very traditionally English and all that, not really a fan of the really rather Francified Olde England, charting its own weird path. (Fairly sparsely populated)
- Africa, by 1800s-odd, doesn't have much in the way ofparticularly notable divergences (heh). Aragonese/Catalonian, Spanish coastal footholds (fairly far into the inland, really more accurately legholds by this point) in northern Africa, particularly Morocco and Algeria. Colonialism, besides North Africa, is mostly around the same stage as OTL. No notable African civs, unfortunately. I'll let you make assumptions for which country got the Cape.
- Iran is divided, apparently - the North is still Khanate-dominated, IIRC, while a surviving (Taiwan-like) "authenthic Persian" state survives in the south.
- ... and also India, with something like the Mughals (yes, with a, 1400s pod: just assume its "close enough" for practical work), a Bengali nation, and other sorts of divided states here and there in the subcontinent still existin', and chillin'. Some European colonies dot the coasts, but nowhere near as dominant as the historical British Raj.
- and... China. After exploring for a bit (establishing surviving settler colonies in Australia and America), the country collapsed in civil war, has yet to reunite, and is, IIRC, only about somewhat more advanced than it's OTL version at the time (perhaps thanks to the interstate competition and being more open to foreign advances). Its now-independent colonies (mostly all gone, although I think one of the southern Chinese states controls part of the Philippines) in western North America and Australia, on the other hand, are much more modern (fully "civilized"), if still a bit behind in tech, IIRC, to the more modern European and European settler countries. Some overseas Chinese talk of reunifying the homeland.... from there.
- And then, there's an early-modernized Japan, one that never went isolationist, as modern as any other European state on the planet, with colonies in eastern Siberia and Alaska, (and not to mention Korea). Basically: it's where it was at in 1940-odd OTL, just about an entire century earlier.
the dates are by 1840, just to be clear: not that you'd necessarily need to date the map there - heck you could push it to the twentieth century or even modern day for all really. all up to you if you wanna do these ideas
(if you do decide taking this one up, it'd actually be pretty interesting to see how your vision would line up differently with the actual mod, provided I haven't spoiled too much of it already. if you are curious about some of the specific details, particularly geographical, here's (warning: obviously spoilers) the actual link to the mod page. and here's a wiki history page for the mod. but, of course, otoh, that might conflict with your whole wish to do an original scenario, if you wanna take just the broader ideas)
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Although Castile is bigger than Portugal, it's important to notice that at that time Lisbon was the second-biggest city in the Iberian Peninsula by population and was larger than Seville and Madrid, while being only smaller than Granada by a difference of 5 thousand. (Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1021988/thirty-largest-cities-western-europe-1500/)
This matters as a Castilian-Portuguese union could very well have its capital in Lisbon, especially if it focuses on having a colonial empire instead of caring about the rest of Europe. This could result in the state bureucracy speaking Portuguese, or at least focusing on teaching Portuguese in the colonies as they would have to report back only to Lisbon.
Or they both die before they can betray one another.Ah, now that would be interesting... it sort of begs the question though, of how long an amiable relation could be maintained between the two
I have a suspicion that something would sunder the "bromance" at some point
Napoleon drinks a hole in his stomach, Alex fakes his own death to live out the rest of his life as a poor, wandering starets in the wilds of Russia....
Oh, wait....
How about a world where various artificially constructed languages (conlangs) caught on and became the official languages of various countries and international movements? Some of them might draw their vocabulary from natural languages, like Esperanto does, while others would take a more "clean slate" approach where the vocabulary is entirely original. Some could be socialist-inspired and others might be based on religious or nationalist ideas.
I think that he has done a scenario that features both of them and more, though not in a modern way I think <_<