An Age of Miracles Continues: The Empire of Rhomania

The best long-term surviving chance the idwait malikate has is making itself valuable to the romans. And I don't mean just economicaly (those things tend to get overlooked by ambitious politicians). A political/military "tribute" would raise their value enourmously. Maybe in the form of sending a contigent of soldiers in time of war against non-muslim powers.
 
Can we have a list of the upcoming updates? (with not too telling titles, but more like teasers?)

Personally I'd like to know how things are going in Russia (and their inability to help their orthodox allies against the Ottomans) and how things have been affected in Rhomania-in-the-East by the great Uprising (We know Portuguese are encroaching and lack of reinforcements have made the roman presence lighter and more easy to shake off, but what about social and cultural effects?).
 
what are iskandar's plans if he wins? I know what he wants, but his post war plans i am curious. He might want to expand into india or go north to stop the cossack host. Maybe he can try finding a way to place a pro ottoman regime in oman. Of course, this is if he wins. Still, it doesnt hurt to dream :D
 
In honor of the new thread, I hope that you guys will like my rudimentary uh...Polandball map of the situation in Rhomania and it's neighbors. Please forgive me if any of the 'balls look absolutely wrong.

RoR Polandball.png
 
what are iskandar's plans if he wins? I know what he wants, but his post war plans i am curious.

In one update Iskander said he wanted the whole crappy war cycle to stop. He can't humiliate Rhomania if he wants to achieve this. Take a bit from their allies maybe, but not that much. A peaceful stable border with the mightiest of his neighbours would be the best he can get.
 
GdwnsnHo: We’ll be seeing a lot of Leo…
/
Ramones1986: Rum Peranakans are still very few in number, although even those few have proven to be valued and skilled members of Rhomania in the East. I may do some more about them when Roman Malaya is more developed, but the OTL versions are outside of my knowledge base.
/
Gianni Rivera: In military skill, if Andreas is a 10 Iskandar is a 9.5, although Iskandar had to work his way up while Andreas started as a superb general even when he was still a teenager. Iskandar also has the disadvantage of having generally more capable opponents than Andreas did.
/
Arrix85: Sorry, I phrased that poorly. The Georgians relaxed their guard when Iskandar went east and were then caught completely flat-footed when he came at them out of nowhere, hence why the conditions of Tabriz were in an almost criminally incompetent state. The Aras line has the advantage, from the Georgian perspective, of being closer to the Georgian heartland with more developed defenses and is more geographically defendable. Also an Ottoman advance north of the river has to worry about a flank attack from Roman Armenia.
/
I have the next four updates written so I can give teasers for those:
1) Work makes you free
2) The Grenadier and the Mosque
3) “I’m not about to get run down by an Englishman!”
4) Coal, cotton, and the wine-dark sea
/
I am planning for a Russian interlude which will cover all the events in Russia since the end of the Great Northern War. Rhomania in the East will be put into the regular updates although exactly where I haven’t determined yet.
/
Egyptian situation: The Muslims have all emigrated to the Idwait Malik-ate. That is how much they despised Coptic overlordship. However their tune may change when Hassan can’t feed the mass influx of refugees. The Coptic capital is in Tanta; a location in the central Delta is the most logical as that is where the Copts are concentrated. South of the Nile to Cairo is Nile German territory and from there to Beni Suef is empty waste.
/
Frustrated progressive: I liked that at the end of the old thread my posts made up around only 8-9% of the thread. It meant lots of people were getting involved and it was generating lots of discussions.
/
Norlag: The Idwaits’ best chance of peace and prosperity is good relations with Rhomania and Ethiopia. By treaty they do pay tribute to both states. One idea I’m playing with is Idwait sons often hiring out as Roman or Ethiopian mercenaries to serve in the Far East. As trading partners the Christian partners are the only significant options and as an upcoming update will make clear Roman looms are very hungry.
/
Sh3baproject: Iskandar wants to emulate his namesake and invade northern India. There is a lot of wealth there that isn’t nearly as well defended as in the west. If the Romans hadn’t attacked Mecca and Jeddah Iskandar would have been willing to write off Georgia’s territories south of the Aras and attack India instead. But as Islam’s greatest sovereign that was something he could not afford to ignore. There hasn’t been a hajj since 1595.
/
Floppy seal 99: I like it.
/
Altwere: Iskandar would like a stable border with Rhomania. His interest in the east. At the same time though he wants to be properly compensated for his efforts…
 
Egyptian situation: The Muslims have all emigrated to the Idwait Malik-ate. That is how much they despised Coptic overlordship. However their tune may change when Hassan can’t feed the mass influx of refugees. The Coptic capital is in Tanta; a location in the central Delta is the most logical as that is where the Copts are concentrated. South of the Nile to Cairo is Nile German territory and from there to Beni Suef is empty waste.


That seems a bit excessive.
 
It would useful to know the numbers of this phenomenon...


Anyway maybe not all of them go away, but a vast majority? It can be said that a region when it loses most of its population becomes an "empty wasteland", the copts and the nile germans will take years to fill up the region and many fields will remain unattended and abandoned.

Can some communities make the following reasoning? "if we are low in numbers they won't see us as a threat and they will not treat us as badly". Now a roman strategy of integration by surrounding muslim communities with christian ones would be feasible. *I realize it involves a lot of hindsightvium"
 
It would useful to know the numbers of this phenomenon...
Can some communities make the following reasoning? "if we are low in numbers they won't see us as a threat and they will not treat us as badly". Now a Roman strategy of integration by surrounding Muslim communities with Christian ones would be feasible. *I realize it involves a lot of hindsightvium"

That kind of reasoning doesn't work out in real life though. For example, Jews only constituted 0.75% of 1933 Germany's population; that didn't exactly lessen the prejudice or discirmination against them. I'd expect that to be the same for the Muslim Egyptians.
 
Don't see how is that excessive.I can't see anyone wanting to live under an apartheid regime if you are not one of those benefiting from it.

"Wanting to" is irrelevant. There are bound to be thousands of people who have closer links to the government than their neighbours, who have been Romanized, have business reliant on Rome and the despotate, and who are just plain simply unable to leave for one reason or another (lack the means, have a spouse that won't or can't leave, people forced to stay, etc.)
 
"Wanting to" is irrelevant. There are bound to be thousands of people who have closer links to the government than their neighbours, who have been Romanized, have business reliant on Rome and the despotate, and who are just plain simply unable to leave for one reason or another (lack the means, have a spouse that won't or can't leave, people forced to stay, etc.)
Those are probably not Muslim then.
 
"Wanting to" is irrelevant. There are bound to be thousands of people who have closer links to the government than their neighbours, who have been Romanized, have business reliant on Rome and the despotate, and who are just plain simply unable to leave for one reason or another (lack the means, have a spouse that won't or can't leave, people forced to stay, etc.)

A fair number of those people are going to be forced to make hard choices when some family and many of their coreligionists go south. Staying means being subject to much stronger pressure to convert, and would sever many of their previous ties. Leaving would sever some of them just the same, but instead of discrimination and demands to convert, they instead must leave their property and other economic interests behind; potentially to leave their family in poverty compared to their previous status.

I suspect many of those that have such links to Roman commerce and the government of the Despotate will convert rather than destroy their family legacy. After all, they've been dealing with the Romans and the Copts for quite some time now, and leaving would probably mean sacrificing two or three generations of family efforts to achieve some social advancement.
 
A fair number of those people are going to be forced to make hard choices when some family and many of their coreligionists go south. Staying means being subject to much stronger pressure to convert, and would sever many of their previous ties. Leaving would sever some of them just the same, but instead of discrimination and demands to convert, they instead must leave their property and other economic interests behind; potentially to leave their family in poverty compared to their previous status.

I suspect many of those that have such links to Roman commerce and the government of the Despotate will convert rather than destroy their family legacy. After all, they've been dealing with the Romans and the Copts for quite some time now, and leaving would probably mean sacrificing two or three generations of family efforts to achieve some social advancement.
From what b444 said, practically all the Muslims were oppressed rural serfs, so there wouldn't be strong ties to Coptic society for them.
 
Keep in the mind that the depopulated area is only the 70 mile stretch between Cairo and Beni Suef (250 to 300,000 Muslims have fled south). The elements of Egyptian society in that area that were closely aligned with the Coptic government either got wiped out or fled north when the Idwaits took over the region and have yet to move back. The Muslims of the region (95%+ of the population pre-revolt) were rural serfs and so had practically no connection with the government save through its corrupt law courts that were in the pocket of the landlords.

So there is nothing to encourage them to stay, especially when it is considered that the region is under Despotic, not Imperial control. The Coptic landlords were already nasty to their slaves serfs tenants before the slave revolt/religious war and all its attendant massacres and atrocities. The mood of their landlord cousins from the Delta coming to reclaim their relatives' lands is unlikely to have improved.

Furthermore the one force capable of keeping the Coptic landlords in line, the Roman army, is busy marching out of Egypt at maximum speed to fight in Syria. And to provision the Roman armies fighting against Iskandar Egyptian grain is going to be very useful, potentially even crucial considering that Syrian harvests have been lousy the past several years (the revolt there didn't help either). So the Romans are not in the best position to be unduly irritating the Coptic landlords.
 

GdwnsnHo

Banned
I wonder if we'll see a drastic increase in the Coptic and Nile German populations in the next few generations? Either from immigration/breeding or some other factor?

An interesting situation however is that now there is a vastly underpopulated Egypt (poor Rhomania, so much underpopulation, so often) it puts Egypt in the unusual position that gives it an incentive to experiment with technologies that improve productivity. Egyptian Industrial Revolution? Or well, Industrial Zippity Zap Zoop? (I cannot English today).
 
Top