Hey alternate historians,
I've been working on this certain timeline for a while (some people already know it) which has an 1852 PoD. The PoD, a magical awakening (oh did i mention it was a bit asb? probably not, because that doesn't really matter regarding this question) plunges parts of the world into chaos (more precise: a ton of civil wars) so the world order is a bit altered. europe keeps its dominant position, and at the point where asian countries would be on a similar foot like the west (*cough* like japan *cough*) the continent would already be colonized by europeans or they wouldnt have interest in it, so it basically stays the same situation, because even though there's a big and influential greater germany gobbling western (non-)russian territories, they mostly stay similar to OTL when it comes to colonies, so they would likely just grab togo, tanzania and maybe namibia.
now the map shown above is post colonialization in modern tech era, but as you can see the continent looks kinda "too balkanized" and some spots are kinda bugging my eye.
so what i'm thinking about is staying mostly true to the otl borders but i am aware that a pod so much earlier than 1884 and additionally a world-changing row of events plus new players on the stage in the 1850s, 1860s and 1870s would lead to some different decisions on borders, especially colonial ones.
Thats why I'm asking: Should I
1) Keep mostly OTL borders but change those that are very unrealistic/unlikely for this TL's PoD
2) Orientate myself at them but implement some major differencies
3) keep the current map
4) make a new map but with a similar attitude as the current map (more or less completely custom borders based on geography etc)
5) keep current but alter some aspects (if so then tell me which)
?
Greetings,
Val