AH often tries to twist real life wars to a different outcome, but less often tries to invent new ones specific to a non-military POD and time line.
I'm currently living in Northern California, prime AH Chinese colony planting country. When I was in Berkeley, I could pretty much imagine the place with mulberry trees, rice paddies, some treasure ships anchored in the East Bay and some nice Pagodas for magistrates and bureaucrats built where Lombard Street is in SF.
I am personally of the opinion that, if the Chinese did colonize the New World, the Native Americans would still get pandemics on the same scale more or less, but due to the less aggressive and different Chinese patterns of population growth and settlement, they'd stick to the west coast in certain spots good for ports and riciculture and unlike Hendryk's TL, the Native Americans would probably stay independent cultures, albeit with new cultural influences, but they would need a while to recover from whatever diseases hit. But Chinese settlement differences would buy some cultures time to guarantee parity and continued independence and sometimes expansion.
I was wondering if anyone wanted to throw out some ideas about AH wars and power struggles in this kind of setting..
i guess I envision a Chinese/Native state/province along the coast of California into Oregon and parts of WA. It is de facto independent, especially during dynasty changes back in China proper. The Mesoamericans are divided into small warring kingdoms as whichever empire is in power when the Han arrive shatters from the pandemics but the Chinese technology is left for smaller powers to recoup population and fight for power. Zapotecs, Mixtecs, Purepechua.
Inland, you have potential for Mongol-style aggressive horse nomads. Apache, Sioux, etc.
The Mississippi tribes are further out of the way from the Chinese settlements but able to gain from them trough trade.
To the east, maybe some peasant kingdoms in the Allegheny Mountains or the Ohio River Valley.
What kind of conflicts? What role to the Chinese play? Mediator? Subtle empire builders?