AHC: Largest possible Roman Republic/Empire

Utterly untrue. China happened to froze its technological progress almost at the very verge of the Industrial Revolution. For most of its history, up to the late Ming and the Qing, Imperial China was one of the most dynamical civilizations on Earth as it concerned technological progress. Rome itself remained quite dynamic up to the 3rd century crisis.

Unless you speak of the Zuang incident, which launched a thousand WIs, The Ming were not innovative. You see, the problem with the Chinese is that machinery was simply not as profitable for labour as manual labour, and their culture and geographic position was very counter-productive to real technological innovation beyong practical uses(like certain types of rice that could grow at different seasons).
 

Eurofed

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As we're speculating in the other thread, imagine G. Julius Caesar doesn't get assassinated and is victorious in his Parthian campaign. Would he attempt to precede Trajan and go all the way to the Tigris or will be content to avenge Crassus and secure the Armenian clients?

Either way, he comes back victorious from that and Germania is likely next in the crosshairs, no? Or back to Britain?

His basic grand plan was first to do the Trajan stuff, then to conquer Germania.
 
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How large could the Roman state have realistically become? And how could it become this large?

This large, undoubtedly and undebatably:

World at 2011

Purple: Roman Empire
Brown: Chinese Empire
Light Yellow: Japanese Empire
Light Blue: Republic of New Rome
Neon Green: Mayan Kingdom
Red: Aztec Empire
Green: some confederation of plains tribes, perhaps the Souix
Orange: some confederation of tribes native to this area in North America plus migrated Iroquois

Gray: Inca Empire
Turquoise: some African kingdom
Darker Greenish-Blue color: another African kingdom
Pink: a loose confederation of small African city-states and tribes
Mustard Yellow-Green color: a trading/naval African empire
Neon Blue: An African republic

Map.PNG
 
The problem is that at the end of the Republic, Rome had run out of profitable target. What remained was dirt poor and difficult to conquer - often both. Add the logistic problems and it becomes quite obvious that Rome has got as far OTL as it could.

  • - Caledonia and Ireland are militarily doable, but what the point ?
  • - Germania could have been done if Varrus had been even marginally competent, but would add little to the Empire.
  • - A significant part of Persia - basically the territories conquered by Trajan OTL - could have been held

The problem was that expanding meant you had to defend an administrate the conquered territories, and when they were too poor, this resulted into a net loss for the Empire.

Caledonia to keep the northern frontier secure, Hibernia (Ireland) to stop piracy (which likely would've developed).

Germania had amber, which was very expensive, adds lots of military manpower (Germans were on average superior individual fighters to the Roman and other contemporary Mediterranean peoples, with training they would be superb soldiers). And Romanisation would cause less disloyalty to the Empire which happened in OTL. It would also stop the erosion in equipment and tactics used, as the late Germano-Roman army used equipment similar to the barbarians, as the Germans were individual warriors, not soldiers.
 
This large, undoubtedly and undebatably:

World at 2011

Purple: Roman Empire
Brown: Chinese Empire
Light Yellow: Japanese Empire
Light Blue: Republic of New Rome
Neon Green: Mayan Kingdom
Red: Aztec Empire
Green: some confederation of plains tribes, perhaps the Souix
Orange: some confederation of tribes native to this area in North America plus migrated Iroquois

Gray: Inca Empire
Turquoise: some African kingdom
Darker Greenish-Blue color: another African kingdom
Pink: a loose confederation of small African city-states and tribes
Mustard Yellow-Green color: a trading/naval African empire
Neon Blue: An African republic

You can't be serious...
 
This large, undoubtedly and undebatably:

World at 2011

Purple: Roman Empire
Brown: Chinese Empire
Light Yellow: Japanese Empire
Light Blue: Republic of New Rome
Neon Green: Mayan Kingdom
Red: Aztec Empire
Green: some confederation of plains tribes, perhaps the Souix
Orange: some confederation of tribes native to this area in North America plus migrated Iroquois

Gray: Inca Empire
Turquoise: some African kingdom
Darker Greenish-Blue color: another African kingdom
Pink: a loose confederation of small African city-states and tribes
Mustard Yellow-Green color: a trading/naval African empire
Neon Blue: An African republic

That hurts my eyes... :(


Caledonia to keep the northern frontier secure, Hibernia (Ireland) to stop piracy (which likely would've developed).

Germania had amber, which was very expensive, adds lots of military manpower (Germans were on average superior individual fighters to the Roman and other contemporary Mediterranean peoples, with training they would be superb soldiers). And Romanisation would cause less disloyalty to the Empire which happened in OTL. It would also stop the erosion in equipment and tactics used, as the late Germano-Roman army used equipment similar to the barbarians, as the Germans were individual warriors, not soldiers.

Necro much :p? The cost of Germania probably wouldn't have been worth the cost of upkeep. Logically speaking, Rome was bigger than she should have gotten.
 
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