AHC: World of Empires

Your challenge is to have the ENTIRE world, minus antartica, is owned by 6 - 8 empires, in the year of 2010.
Multiple bonus points for a map.
 
The world came pretty close in the early 20th century. If Spain never oppresses the nonwhites, and all the colonial powers treat their American colonies well, and China conquers Korea and Japan, and Russia and Austria own most of Eastern Europe, and Ethiopia is conquered and Liberia never appears, then the world could be split between 6-8 empires.


EDIT: 8 seems to be the least possible. Portugal could still exist, and instead the Netherlands are absorbed in the Greater Deutschland.

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The world came pretty close in the early 20th century. If Spain never oppresses the nonwhites, and all the colonial powers treat their American colonies well, and China conquers Korea and Japan, and Russia and Austria own most of Eastern Europe, and Ethiopia is conquered and Liberia never appears, then the world could be split between 6-8 empires.


EDIT: 8 seems to be the least possible. Portugal could still exist, and instead the Netherlands are absorbed in the Greater Deutschland.

Or you could have the Ottoman Empire carved up, and throw in the unified Empire of Scandinavia for shits and giggles. (Including the Scandinavian Congo, no doubt.) :D

Frankly, I think the real pain in the ass is keeping Latin America from breaking up: it's not just the nonwhites that were pissed, the Spanish crown didn't trust the locally born whites either (with some justification).

Bruce

Bruce
 
The world came pretty close in the early 20th century. If Spain never oppresses the nonwhites, and all the colonial powers treat their American colonies well, and China conquers Korea and Japan, and Russia and Austria own most of Eastern Europe, and Ethiopia is conquered and Liberia never appears, then the world could be split between 6-8 empires.


EDIT: 8 seems to be the least possible. Portugal could still exist, and instead the Netherlands are absorbed in the Greater Deutschland.

View attachment 109546

Nice idea, Xwarq...
I have things to ask:
1.Could China conquer Japan? What is the most plausible way for that?
2.Why Ethiopia in OTL never conquered? What nation that is most likely to conquer it?
3.How can British allow Russians to conquer Persia?
4.What is the most plausible way for Ottomans to conquer the interior of Arabia?
5.How about the World Wars? Any losers would surely losing numerous territories...
 
The world came pretty close in the early 20th century. If Spain never oppresses the nonwhites, and all the colonial powers treat their American colonies well, and China conquers Korea and Japan, and Russia and Austria own most of Eastern Europe, and Ethiopia is conquered and Liberia never appears, then the world could be split between 6-8 empires.


EDIT: 8 seems to be the least possible. Portugal could still exist, and instead the Netherlands are absorbed in the Greater Deutschland.

You appear to have forgotten to reshade Greenland. Unless that's the 8th empire?

If it's not, given you're looking for 6-8 empires and your map only shows 7, you could allow Portugal to be the 8th, since I think by the 20th century Portugal being subsumed into Spain is pretty much totally out of the question.

Edit: Just spotted you have the Dutch. Ah. Hmmm...break China into European spheres of influence, perhaps, and anti-Meiji Japan into a European protectorate? Clutching at straws here but to me Spanish Portugal without a POD 400 years ago is just totally unlikely.
 
@xqarq nice map btw but I would change a few things.

Its Japan that takes over china.

Maybe the Netherlands takes some of Brazil.

Ottoman/Turkish Sinai, or would the British not allow it.

I had more but I forget.

There probs would have not have been any world wars, and yes what about greenland/iceland possibly British?
 
a 9.GIF


Ok, so the reasoning here is that Simon Bolivar manages to create a stable Grand Colombia which remains powerful and becomes the dominant South American power.
The USA follows the Monroe Doctrine fully and, after another Mexican American War, gradually assimilates Mexico into the union (it takes almost a century to do so).

The European powers go to war in the early 20th century; Germany, Italy, Bulgaria and Russia versus Austro-Hungary, Britain, France, Romania, Serbia, Greece and the Ottoman Empire.
The German side is victorious; Germany annexes Austria and Bohemia while a satellite branch of the Hohelzollerns are put on the throne of Hungary. Romania, Bulgaria and European Turkey are all garrisoned and given German kings. Turkey is partitioned.
Germany, having occupied the Netherlands and parts of Switzerland during the war move to incorporate them into the empire; in response the French annex Belgium.

Scramble for China. The Qing Dynasty has fallen and anarchy reigns. Imperial powers move in and gradually set up their clients and vassals; Britain and Russia play the Great Game while France takes Tonkin and also moves north into Yunnan and Canton. Germany takes the north while Russia takes Manchuria (assume the Japanese lost the Russo-Japanese war equivalent).

By the time WW2 bops along, it's Germany, Russia and Japan versus Britain, France and Italy. Thw war's short but bloody and results in the Scandinavian countries being occupied by Germany to secure their natural resources. Britain and Japan fight for control of the Pacific and Britain wins. The Japanese refuse to surrender and so an invasion of the home islands is launched; millions die on either side yet Britain occupies the islands.

By 1960 the powers are:
The British Empire (additonal territories include: Dutch East Indies [Indonesia], Mesopotamia, Arabia, Transjordan, Patagonia and Chile, Iceland, Greenland [occupied during WW2 to stop German acquisition of airbases], Japanese Home Islands.)

The German Reich (add. territories: dynastic union with Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Netherlands, Denmark. Satellite regimes: Hungary, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Romania, Sweden-Norway [which are in personal union], exclusive sphere of influence over Northern China, protectorate over Korea [both recognised in 1936])

The 5th Republic of France (add. terr.: Congo, Dutch Guyana, Siam, Southern China [exclusive sphere of influence as recognised by the Treaty of Xian, 1936), Belgium.

The Russian Empire (add terr.: Eastern Anatolia, Persia [protectorate], Mongolia [" "], Manchuria [" "], Hokkaido, S. Sakhalin.

Portuguese Empire (only OTL)

Spanish Empire (only OTL)

Gran Colombia (add. terr.: asides from 'traditional Gran Colombia' [excl. Panama], parts of Chila and west Brazil, Praguay.

The United States of America (add. terr.: Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, Cuba, San Dominica, Haiti, the Philippines, Formosa. [NB theses are not necessarily states; most Caribbean territories are still awaiting statehood, as are the Philippines and Formosa. Most of Central America has been admitted to the Union by 1960, but many southern areas remain very poor and so are not full states and lack full voting rights.])

The Kingdom of Italy (add. terr.: southern Swiss Cantons, Albania, Greece [both in dynastic union], south western Anatolia, Abyssinia.)

a 9.GIF
 
Hmm, I think the biggest problem here is how to make these Empires survive until 2010...
No world wars would be necessary, and of course, the absence of independence movements...
But how to make that possible...?
 
Hmm, I think the biggest problem here is how to make these Empires survive until 2010...
No world wars would be necessary, and of course, the absence of independence movements...
But how to make that possible...?

You don't necessarily need the absence of independence movements, though a decrease would be useful. What you really need here is no decolonialism pressure from the USA, and the empires being more willing to do what is necessary to fight off guerrilla movements in their colonies - the British proved in Malaya that a steely resolve and a willingness to use the guerrilla's own tactics against them could conclusively defeat such enemies. Also, if you have a POD which allows for the Internationalist movement in the USSR to peter out, leading to a Soviet Union very jealous of its own interests but not so willing to sponsor communist movements abroad, that would also help the empires keep hold of their territories.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Well, as it concerns Imperial worlds, one obvious option is the success and steady growth of Rome and China. I made this map as a variant of eric2786 Roman TL, where the PoD is the survival of Caesar that is inspired by the assassination attempt to create an imperial constitutional monarchy, with a stable power balance between the Imperial executive and a Senate elected by the provinces that counters military anarchy. He goes on to conquer and assimilate Germania-Dacia and Parthia, and his successors build on that. Roman success butterflies China into parallel achievements.

Edit: changed the map to cut the empires down to 8

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Eurofed

Banned
Another good PoD for an imperial world is (paradoxically) the success of the 1848 Revolutions, with the twin butterfly of Britain/France intervening in the ACW and China successfully modernizing in late 19th century like Japan.

Main PoD may either be the Habsburg getting an epiphany, giving autonomy to Hungary and taking the lead of national unification of Germany and Italy as a set of Habsburg monarchies. Alternatively, Russia is paralyzed by a bedridden tasr or revolution in Poland, FWIV accepts the crown of Germany, and Prussia and Savoy successfully unify Greater Germany and Italy.

Anyway, the German-Italian-Hungarian Triple Alliance, which co-opts a revitalized Turkey and some European minors, and a militarized America crush France, Russia, the CSA, and the British Empire in a series of world wars. The *CP eventually unify Europe, Russia, and the Middle East into an Eurasian Federation, they carve Africa into colonial empires that remain bound to the EF into a tight confederal Commonwealth bond, militarist-expansionist USA annex Canada, CSA, Mexico, and the Caribbean, and bond South America, Oceania, and a Japan defeated by China into their own confederation, China unites mainland east Asia and SE Asia into its own confederation, and India breaks bonds from a defeated Britain to become the fourth superpower. By 2010, the world is wholly carved into four superstate blocks.

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The map shows a bit more than 8 empires, but we can easily adjust it by letting some of the minor powers be absorbed by the superstates.
Commenting with no other knowledge of the TL, I'd suggest not having any of the American colonies gain independence. That would cut it down to 7.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Commenting with no other knowledge of the TL, I'd suggest not having any of the American colonies gain independence. That would cut it down to 7.

Yeah, although that would drastically affect the global power balance since UPA is the third superpower and it becomes difficult to see how China could balance a Rome that can call upon the resources of its Eurasian-African core, most of North America, and northern South America. IMO it is better done by merging the African empires to 1-2, and/or China absorbing Japan. That would cut down the superstates to 7-8, while leaving the multipolar power balance roughly intact. Or at least just leaving New Sun and the Inca under the thumb of foreign powers.

Eric only devloped the original TL till the late Middle Ages, when a Renaissance Rome had absorbed Europe, northern and eastern Africa, the Middle East, European Russia, and India, had a stable superpower rivalry with Imperial China, and was in the same rough position in North America as the British Empire on the eve of the ARW. I changed some details (IMO he gave too much of a survival break to pre-Colombian native civilizations and conversely made Rome expand too much in low-value Sahel and West Africa) and made a reasoned guess on how the TL would evolve to modern times with plausible colonialization and decolonization patterns in the Americas.

Edit: I've revised the map to cut the empires down to 8.
 
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Discussing about world that owned by super-empires, I wonder what would be the differences between that kind of world compared with ours, in which small nations squabbling around the globe...
You know, the governments, educations, politics, cultures, etc...
How about daily life? Would it different with ours?
 
Discussing about world that owned by super-empires, I wonder what would be the differences between that kind of world compared with ours, in which small nations squabbling around the globe...
You know, the governments, educations, politics, cultures, etc...
How about daily life? Would it different with ours?

I reckon international relations would be less tense. I may just be over optimistic, but I think each bloc would be happy with what they have, and so problems could be solved by the group of empires as a whole.

Besides, they can be democratic empires, like France, however colonial policies would still be the same IMO to the early 20th century i.e. you don't count unless you're white and maybe if you're a white female, although that's pushing it.
 
Nice idea, Xwarq...
I have things to ask:
1.Could China conquer Japan? What is the most plausible way for that?
2.Why Ethiopia in OTL never conquered? What nation that is most likely to conquer it?
3.How can British allow Russians to conquer Persia?
4.What is the most plausible way for Ottomans to conquer the interior of Arabia?
5.How about the World Wars? Any losers would surely losing numerous territories...

Well, since Xwarq haven't answered my questions yet, maybe someone else wanted to...?
 
Well, since Xwarq haven't answered my questions yet, maybe someone else wanted to...?

1.Could China conquer Japan? What is the most plausible way for that?

Generally, historically speaking, Japan has been by far the weaker nation - 1890 to, say, last week is the unusual case. Generally, the problem is getting China interested in trying. A few possibilities, earliest to latest...

a. Kublai Khan is luckier with the weather. Japan becomes a Chinese territory under the Mongols, and stays that way.
b. Under the Ming, China had some problems with Japanese pirates. In a "Ming keep sailing" TL, this could lead to an invasion of Japan
c. Hideyoshi manages to conquer Korea, and his successors go on to invade China. This ultimately fails, but pisses off the Chinese enough that under a militant new Chinese dynasty, not only are the Japanese expelled from the mainland by 1700, but the Chinese go on to do unto the Japanese what the Japanese did to them.
d. Nuclear war late 60s, China stays out of it, occupies radioactive wreck of Japan...(but that won't get you empires, I suppose. :D )

2.Why Ethiopia in OTL never conquered? What nation that is most likely to conquer it?

It's an unusually large and cohesive black African country, with a strong identity based on Christianity, and its core is up on some mountains which are very hard to reach. It almost was overrun OTL by slow encroachment from the coast in the 15th-16th centuries, when the Portuguese gave them a bit of a hand: a more interventionist Ottoman Empire could easily have taken it in those days, and it might easily have become a British protectorate in those days they were busy securing the course of the Nile.


4.What is the most plausible way for Ottomans to conquer the interior of Arabia?

'be modern' :D

Bruce
 

Eurofed

Banned
I reckon international relations would be less tense. I may just be over optimistic, but I think each bloc would be happy with what they have, and so problems could be solved by the group of empires as a whole.

I agree. Morevoer, I have yet another "imperial" scenario, a backburner TL scenario of mine.

- PoD is the survival of Frederick I Barbarossa to complete the Third Crusade and of his son Henry VI Hohenstaufen to a successful long reign respectively. This creates a strong basis for the gradual centralization of the HRE, and enables its transformation into a hereditary monarchy at the very end of the 12nd century. Their talented scion Frederick II is educated to complete the basic job of empire-building, which he does over his own decades-long equally-successful reign. Some intermittent civil wars in Germany and Italy see the resistance of particularist nobles and city-states crushed and gradually snuffed out. Another long reign by his son Conrad IV, in a dynasty notable for the longevity of its talented rulers, sees the Western Roman/Carolingian Empire definitely being reborn in the eyes of its subjects as the most powerful centralized European monarchy spanning Germany, Italy, Austria, Bohemia-Moravia, the Low Countries, Burgundy, Switzerland, Slovenia, and Dalmatia, its armies swelled by the manpower of Germany and Italy and its coffers filled by the taxation flowing from the trade centers of Flanders, northern Germany, Franconia and Palatinate, Bohemia, northern Italy, and Sicily.

- The power struggle between a stronger HRE and the theocratic Popes leads to an early Great Schism, which eventually ends in the defeat and marginalization of the Papacy and the Curia. The Western monarchies eventually turn to propping up the power of the national episcopates and keeping a tight leash over them, in order to affirm secular control over their respective national clergy. Latin Church becomes quite decentralized, with the clergy of each nation being governed by the local episcopates, subordinate to the secular governments. The Ecumenic Council once again becomes the only authoritative body for the whole Church. This allows the reconciliation between the Latin and Greek Churches, and the end of the Eastern Schism. The Reform as we know it never happens, although the Western Church as a whole evolves to resemble the Episcopal in structure.

- The national unification of France is wrecked, and the fortunes of its neighbor states boosted, when the HRE interferes in the struggles between the Kings of France and the Angevin Empire on one side, and Aragon, France, and the Counts of Tolouse, on the other side. This results in the Plantagenet dynasty successfully keeping and eventually uniting England and their feudal possessions and conquests in northern and western France into a centralized state. The Angevin Empire is also able to affirm its supremacy over Ireland and a Scotland.

- Aragon, not the Capetingian French monarchy, annexes Languedoc and Provence during the confused mess that the suppression of the Cathar heresy becomes when mixed with the Great Schism and later during the War of French Succession. Aragon is able to capitalize this added power into gradually uniting the other Iberian Christian states under its control during the successful Reconquista and the WFS, and to seize Corsica and Sardinia, forming the Iberian Empire. Sicily and southern Italy, however, remain wholly outside its grasp, due to the overwhelming grip of the HRE on Italy.

- The kingdom of France is stalemated in its expansion down to an unhappy, landlocked buffer state (and occasional recurrent battlefield) between the growing imperial behemoths of the HRE, the Angevins, and Iberia. In the 14th century, it suffers a dynastic crisis, and the War of French Succession happens, which sees the decisive victory of the HRE, the Angevin Empire, and Aragon over France, Castille, and Scotland. France is eventually partitioned between the Angevins and the HRE. Iberia swaps its share with Britain in exchange for southern Aquitaine.

- The kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden are pushed into forming a lasting Kalmar Union for mutual protection from their powerful neighbors.

- The strength of the HRE makes its expansion in Eastern Europe highly successful: Poland and Hungary are gradually turned into vassal states, annexed, and assimilated by the HRE.

- The ATL equivalent of the *Fourth Crusade leads to a dynastic change and reform in the Byzantine Empire which is much less destructive (no Sack of Costantinople) than OTL, an alliance with the HRE, and the eventual revitalization of the Byzantine Empire. The ERE gradually recovers full control of Anatolia, Greece, Macedonia, and is later able to conquer the Levant, Armenia, and Mesopotamia. Serbia, Bulgaria, and Wallachia-Moldavia become vassal states of the ERE and are gradually annexed and assimilated.

- The strength of Britain, Iberia, and the HRE leads to a successful new round of Crusades and the expansion of the Reconquista in the 15th century. As a result, Iberia conquers North Africa. The HRE seizes Eygpt and Nubia and turns them into a vassal state, later expanding it into Ethiopia. The HRE-ERE alliance eventually conquers Arabia and Persia (the HRE seizes Hejaz and Yemen, the Byzantine Empire the rest). Those areas are gradually and forcibly Christianized. This is paralleled by an Hindu revival in India and Indonesia, which over the centuries leads to the marginalization and destruction of Islam as a major world religion.

- Mongol invasion of Europe does not really reach any further than Poland and Hungary, and the Tartar onslaught mostly ravages the Middle East for a while, further weakening Islamic states against the Crusader-Byzantine assault. After the Mongol Empire breaks apart, support by the HRE and the ERE allows Muscowy to swiftly oust the Golden Horde and build an empire in European Russia, which later expands to northern Caucasus, western Siberia, and most of Kazakhstan. By a parallel process, a Christianized Prussian tribe (TTL Lithuania equivalent) is able to expand and create a state spanning the Baltic lands, White Russia, Ukraine, and the former Khanate of Crimea, which later gets absorbed by Russia.

- Colonial European expansion leads to the Americas and later South East Asia and Oceania later still subsaharian Africa being carved up by HRE, the Angevins, Iberia, Scandinavia, and ERE, while Russia colonizes Siberia. China and India suffer colonial penetration fro a while, but eventually they are able to modernize to become imperial great powers on the same standing as the European ones, which in modern times leads to India absorbing Baluchistan and Burma, and China absorbing Korea, Japan, and mainland South East Asia.

- Over time, the European powers are strong enough to suppress separatist revolts in their colonial empires, and far-sighted enough to grant fair economic terms and an amount of confederal autonomy to their American and Oceanian colonies and later to the African and Asian ones, which leaves them linked to Europe.

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