Alternate History Challenge: Polish Colonization?

Pretty low, especially that its elective monarchy design meant that many Crown lands weren't really worth fighting for, and by the 18th century its standing among European countries was a joke - even Savoy was held in higher regard with regards to European geopolitics.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Ah, appologies for my ill-informed post then:eek:

No problem, I have had to read up on colonial projects because of my own timeline.

One thing does strike me though, what are the chances of Poland reciving an already profitable colony as some sort of reward for being on the winning side of a war? I'm assuming pretty low, but that would circumvent the whole lack of early profit thing.
Rather low, I can't find a single example in European history where a colony was given to a state without it own colonial company. Poland need to start it own, through in all likelyhood I think a colonial project through a Courland proxy are the most likely. You simply need a stronger crown or a more dominating burgher class for colonial projects. Maybe if you avoid the liberum veto or increase the crowns control over crown lands (while making the crown heritable) which if I remember correctly lay mostly along the Vistula*. We could see a crown willing to waste money on such prestige projects.

*As such they was perfectly placed for investment in mercantile experiment and a growing dominance of Danzig.
 
To get around the lack of access to the open sea, you could have a Swedish-Polish personal union that starts colonies that end up mostly populated by Poles. The Poles had a claim on the Swedish throne for half of the 17th century, so successfully uniting them could lead to Polish colonies.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Maybe a more integrated Pale, bringing in more money to Poland?

Polands problem was the Sejm and the liberum veto, Poland could maybe have come around it, if the crown had been heritable, but a electable crown together with a strong Sejm and a disaster like the liberum veto, was the recipe to political irrelevance. According to the always reliable wikipedia, the liberum veto was only really institutionalised in 1669. A suggestion here could be that John III Sobieski (whom seem somewhat competent) force the Magnate to accept that the crown become heritable and the Sejm have no influence on crownlands against he accept the liberum veto. This would ensure a stable regime with a stable source of income. While Poland had less crownland than most other monarchies in this periode, because of Polands size and the crownland position in the heavy populated west, it would give the king a large enough source of funding, that he may be able to waste some on mercantile projects like colony building (maybe they could buy Tobago of the Courlanders).
 
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