AH Challenge - Is this map possible?

Hello there, im somewhat new to AH.com and after sometime of trying to find a interesting pod and a story to follow ive come up empty handed.
All my ideas ended in complete ASB or a generic cold war scenario. I then decided to throw story writing out the window all together and took to
creating a map of my most fond ideas (Map is set in 2012).

The Challenge is simply come up with a POD that will result in this map, its my first map so don't judge me too much :)
(I'm of course very flexible, not all the things on this map need to exist but the closer the outcome and the later that POD the better)

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The Brazilian and Dutch stuff seems to indicate a division between two factions that used to be one empire, that should be interesting to justify.

Spanish Africa seems to be a space filling state.

Those are the main things that capture my attention offhand, not sure what kind of POD would produce this.
 
Yea Spanish Africa is a major space filler, I just wasn't sure what else to put there. My thought was that Spanish Africa was a result of the Spanish nabbing colonies off

the French Empire (which apparently disintegrated in a three way civil war :confused:) But if im totally honest I spent most of my time in Europe and very little on Africa.
 
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Yea Spanish Africa is a major space filler, I just wasn't sure what else to put there. My thought was that Spanish Africa was a result of the Spanish nabbing colonies off the French Empire (which apparently disintegrated in a three way civil war :confused:) But if im totally honest I spent most of my time in Europe and very little on Africa.

Maybe make a note if this turns into a timeline that most of the interior is not really in Spanish hands, but Spain is acknowledged by the European powers as ruling it and thus most maps list it as "Spanish Africa" in-setting.
 
I don't really like the way you did East Asia…

Well like I said nothing is set in stone, what is it you dont like / is too ASB?

Maybe make a note if this turns into a timeline that most of the interior is not really in Spanish hands, but Spain is acknowledged by the European powers as ruling it and thus most maps list it as "Spanish Africa" in-setting.

A very good idea, separatism or even de facto independent states in Spanish
Africa would be interesting to work with
 
I think an exact PoD would be difficult, but I think you need to be at the very latest 1520 to keep Aragon seperate from Castile. There are definitely some serious space filling empires here, and I am a bit bothered by the use of borders so similar to OTL in the Americas, but as for things I find impossible about it;

1, Louisiana would almost certainly not be called that with a pre 1520 PoD. Probably more like a new France or something along those lines. Same thing about naming goes for Brazil, Columbia, and Oregon.

2, Russia going all the way to the east coast of Canada and greenland seems pretty super ASB to me.

3, While interesting, I think the three way France would be pretty far fetched for any length of time.

4, Brazil's incredible projection capabilities have far outpaced the OTL U.S. which I find unlikely to begin with, but on this scale impossible, though I wouldn't scrap the colonial Brazil idea alltogether.

5, The absence of any meaningful British expansion seems unlikely as well, when faced with France, Spain, and even Holland's overseas lands and breakaway states. Given it's position a Britan without a strong naval focus is quite unlikely, and they are pretty much perfactly placed for expansion into the new world and beyond.

Super Germany and Venice bug me a bit too, but it's okay I guess.

Still, it is very nice, and if you wanted to try to explain exactly how the world got that way I'd be interested in reading it.
 
The trouble with the map is were to start... everything is changed. Also you have not said when the map was set (I am assuming a 2012 edition).

Lets look at GB - unification of England / Wales and Scotland, but no Ireland and Iceland instead. More importantly no Empire.

This could be caused by Britain loosing the Seven Year War to France (lose of India, America) and loosing out to the Dutch in the Anglo-Dutch Wars. Basically Britain looses everywar except the Cod War in 1974 against Iceland!

Europe looks as if it just exploded, but odd bits remain. Spain is still a power, and the Spanish Empire seems to have been existant (FLorida, Mexico, Columba etc.).
 
I think an exact PoD would be difficult, but I think you need to be at the very latest 1520 to keep Aragon seperate from Castile. There are definitely some serious space filling empires here, and I am a bit bothered by the use of borders so similar to OTL in the Americas, but as for things I find impossible about it;

1, Louisiana would almost certainly not be called that with a pre 1520 PoD. Probably more like a new France or something along those lines. Same thing about naming goes for Brazil, Columbia, and Oregon.

2, Russia going all the way to the east coast of Canada and greenland seems pretty super ASB to me.

3, While interesting, I think the three way France would be pretty far fetched for any length of time.

4, Brazil's incredible projection capabilities have far outpaced the OTL U.S. which I find unlikely to begin with, but on this scale impossible, though I wouldn't scrap the colonial Brazil idea alltogether.

5, The absence of any meaningful British expansion seems unlikely as well, when faced with France, Spain, and even Holland's overseas lands and breakaway states. Given it's position a Britan without a strong naval focus is quite unlikely, and they are pretty much perfactly placed for expansion into the new world and beyond.

Super Germany and Venice bug me a bit too, but it's okay I guess.

Still, it is very nice, and if you wanted to try to explain exactly how the world got that way I'd be interested in reading it.

Aragon doesn’t necessarily need to exist if that makes a POD difficult, there are certainly space filling empires and I would be happy to receive suggestions about cutting some of the empires down to size, and as for similar borders in America they could be changed if needed, like you said I didnt alter them much from OTL

1 I completely agree with you, I wouldn’t have any problem swapping out names

2 True but when you consider I was going to give all of Canada to Louisiana its quite tame :D

3 Shame I kinda liked that idea, I tried to make it possible by making a republic, Bourbon monarchy, and a communist state kinda an ideology barrier keeping them apart idea

4 Yea Brazil (or the Portuguese government in exile as I was going for) is
certainly a space filler here

5 My original pod was the Spanish armada actually overthrowing Elizabeth but I understand that wouldn’t really get the job done and it would have huge implications. For this map to have any chance the catholic god would have to throw a meteorite at London to one up the protestant god's
armada destroying storms


My idea for Super Germany was the Austrian Empire falling apart and the Austrian emperor at the time bringing Austria into the holy roman empire (the Hapsburg had the crowns of Austria and Holy Rome before napoleon if I remember correctly)


As for Venice it isn’t all that super it had all those territories at some point I believe

The trouble with the map is were to start... everything is changed. Also you have not said when the map was set (I am assuming a 2012 edition).

Lets look at GB - unification of England / Wales and Scotland, but no Ireland and Iceland instead. More importantly no Empire.

This could be caused by Britain loosing the Seven Year War to France (lose of India, America) and loosing out to the Dutch in the Anglo-Dutch Wars. Basically Britain looses everywar except the Cod War in 1974 against Iceland!

Europe looks as if it just exploded, but odd bits remain. Spain is still a power, and the Spanish Empire seems to have been existant (FLorida, Mexico, Columba etc.).

GB – Yea Britain is definitely an issue (see my meteorite solution above) but an early POD might be enough to knock them out of the game, ohh and the cod war joke was pure genius

Europe - Yep I just strapped a big old barrel of TNT to Europe in this map, but as for the Spanish empire it did exist but eventually disintegrated like OTL the major problem is the fact they own half of Africa , that should probably be changed but im not sure what to put in its place besides an ASB Moroccan empire, suggestions?
 

FDW

Banned
Well like I said nothing is set in stone, what is it you dont like / is too ASB?

Using the 1881-1912 Chinese-Russian border (With a map that implies a POD at least one century before then), treating Korea as a part of China, and the completely random Japanese Vietnam (the rest of colonial Empire I can understand maybe, but that, just no…).
 
I think that a Paris Commune having Paris, Lyon, Lorraine, Alsace, French Flanders and Belgium would Steamroll the rest of France. You basically have all the french industry and steel producing regions in one nation, with nothing for the kingdom of France or the kingdom of Occitania except the coal and iron production of the center of France.
 
Most everything can be done easily with the right POD, the only thing that really rubs me the wrong way is the borders in the Americas and some of the names being too similar to IOTL, especially Bolivia.
 
Changed the map to make it a little less ASB, If I didn't change something you suggested its probably because its 2 AM here so bear with me
 
Right - new map has Ireland as part of UK as well as some parts of Africa and Pacific islands as Empire.

I am looking at a POD were Britain is a mercantile country (very similar to Greece now), it has a huge merchant navy (along with a supporting Royal Navy) but very little in way of Empire.

The English explore, but do not conquor (basically the idealised European power - bringing the possitives of international trade with out the colonial overlord.)

Their history would have been seperate to that of France, so I guess that this would mean an initial POD of no Battle of Hastings (or at least the Bastard looses), this could also link to having Iceland rather than Denmark controling it.
 
Using the 1881-1912 Chinese-Russian border (With a map that implies a POD at least one century before then), treating Korea as a part of China, and the completely random Japanese Vietnam (the rest of colonial Empire I can understand maybe, but that, just no…).

I get your point with china, im game for changing the borders anything you had in mind?. My idea was the Qing got itself reformed (Hundred Days' Reform maybe) but with a pod really early that's an odd butterfly? Korea I made de facto independent perhaps there's a Condominium between china and japan, or at with the kind of relationship those two counties have, an active competition that prevents either power from controlling the country. As for Vietnam let me know what they should be instead
 
Two problems I have with the map. One is the Netherlands does not have the Maluku Islands or the spice islands. These were one of the two core territories of the Dutch in Indonesia (the other being Batavia/Jakarta) and probably the most profitable of all of them. Giving the Portuguese (and later Brazil) the small Sunda islands (like Flores, Timor, Bali, Lombok) seams reasonable, giving them the spice island is a very big difference. It would cost the Dutch a lot of money. which leads me to the second point.

The Dutch are completely overstretched. I do not think small Netherlands can control such a big part of India, Birma, south east Africa and Australia next to Sumatra and Java. If you want to give the Netherlands all of this, you realy need to expend it, for example giving it Flanders or parts of Germany. Or else remove south east India and a large part of Australia from Dutch control (just give the Dutch west autralia for example).

Besides that. I don't think that the smallish France can colonise such a big part of Africa, without a mediterranian coastline or Paris (the core of France). Also I find it unlikely that Britain can get such a big part of Polynesia or New Guinea or New Zealand without a big base, like India. In your scenario Britain is just a small colonizing country. Just give them the part of Africa and only a couple of polynesian islands.

My advise: Unify France (why did you break it up anyway?) and give France the Dutch part of India (maybe let the Dutch keep a small part near Sri Lanka), Eastern Australia (give the west to the Netherlands) and New Zealand. Give France, Germany, Brasil and maybe the Netherlands some of British Polynesia.
 
Liking the modifications. I know that Venice held those territories briefly, but with a strong Ottoman Empire Cyprus would have been nigh impossible to hold. Morea is difficult too, but I think you trimmed it to a point of being managable. I also like Germany a bit better now that you elaborated a bit, though I'd say that would be a nation with allot of regional autonomy, and would only work with a butterflied Prussian dominance in northern Germany and nobody strong enough to fill the void. That is certainly possible mind you, just stating some things needed for it to happen. France being divided would have to be along lines where each group has something that the others lack in order to prevent being steamrolled, and at least with those borders the Paris commune would be far and away the most powerful. Do you have a specific time frame for the PoD in mind, at least the century to help us get a feel for the nations we're working with?

If I may meke a suggestion for helping cut down the Brazillian space filling empire, why not make Aragon have a colonial empire. If it seems too difficult without an Atlantic port, give them Navarre, since there were plenty of opportunities for them to hold it IOTL. They were considerably more powerful and populous then Portugal, even moreso with their Italian and Sicilian lands, and would likely have similar colonial ambitions to Castille and Portugal as well.

Also, why not make Greenland independant? Sure they don't have much strength, but nobody wants their land either. Have them as an independant protectorate of the Russian Empire, Britan, or Denmark and that would make considerably more sence.

Just so you know, I do love a good many ideas. Independant Aragon, Japanese Colonial Empire, and French flavored America.
 
I like the map, but the font is pretty hard to read. Also I don't think it would be called the Kingdom of Aragon, it would probably be called the Crown of Aragon, because Naples is a separate Kingdom.
 

FDW

Banned
I get your point with china, im game for changing the borders anything you had in mind?. My idea was the Qing got itself reformed (Hundred Days' Reform maybe) but with a pod really early that's an odd butterfly? Korea I made de facto independent perhaps there's a Condominium between china and japan, or at with the kind of relationship those two counties have, an active competition that prevents either power from controlling the country. As for Vietnam let me know what they should be instead

Well if you have a reforming Qing dynasty, why not go with their 1689 borders in Manchuria and their 1820 borders elsewhere? As for Vietnam, it probably should be independent. (At least in the north, you could maybe go creative and have Rattanakosin control the south)
 
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I do see where the brazil thing comes from, the portugese royals going into exile in brazil and never returning. where brazil becomes the defacto follow up of portugal.

I have to agree with pompejus, there is no way the netherlands could get all of this without the moluccas and the other east-indian things that are brazilian here. i think new-gunea would be dutch too.
Instead of making australia new-holland, maybe they have new zealand and some australian things on the aussie east coast. Although the netherlands looks heavily overstretched we don't know what the composition of the republic is, maybe the colonies and the motherland are united as one country.
so the dutch republic might not be purely european, but global (i could see that being true for at least NL+south-africa+ australia/nz, and maybe later the rest.

an option to get the netherlands this colonial big would be a dutch-burgundy that keeps existing, it would pretty much be the dutch republic + purple paris region.

in south-america, if dutch guinea still exists as a whole, the netherlands probably also has several islands in the caribean

edit: i doubt that in a world that creates a map like this the yugoslav kingdom would exist, i expect at least a seperate serbia
 
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