I've never witnessed the birth of a new map thread, it's so beautiful
X-posting my MotF entry.
Which BSR is Crimea part of?Modern day map of the UBSR
And the explanation:
Basic idea: The Julio-Claudians don't produce a highly unpopular emperor every other coronation and manage to last roughly a century longer, (snip)
It's an odd world, so I expected some more explaining needed.Quite fascinatingly different, Beedok, but I don’t quite understand some of those corporate states.
Well, they are sort of like East India companies, but have also bought or developped control over a number of minor Indian nations (good for low taxes and such).The Atlantic and Pacific companies, for instance – they’re like the OTL East India company, but sponsored by multiple Indian states simultaneously?
Candy, being an island, got into the game early and managed to keep their companies on a leach. Bengal meanwhile is tired of having Delhi treat them as a secondary power and have dreams of grandeur. Delhi is mostly happy to just use the big companies (and a collection of smaller ones) to bring back cash.Also, I don’t really get why Bengal and Candy seem to be the only Indian state that goes in for national colonies rather than leaving the colonization biz to the corporations.
That will be explained under the 'free territories' blurb.Speaking of Bengal, why do they have a colony in North America with no access to it?
Free Corporate Territories are areas deemed 'backwards' and opened to corporate activities. Different districts are up for lease, and companies (or states) buy these for a 5 year period. These leases are managed by neutral administrators in Madagascar.And I don’t get the “free corporate territories”, which seem to unite colonies such of those of Bengal and Candy, corporate territories and puppets, and puppets of some states, including the non-Dharming Sibirians. How do they work?
They were originally an alliance of Indian Christian merchants trying to aid their co-religious compatriots in Rome and elsewhere. They started making cash when oil became valuable and Hindu merchants more or less took over.The Christian Alliance – so it’s a theoretically “Christian” trading megacorp backed by…Indian Christian states?
Rome and China have had varying areas under corporate rule (different governments and local officials are open to different bribers). It's been going on at varying levels for almost 200 years, and there have been rebellions when the demands were too strong.How long have the Indian and Roman states been under the corporate thumb? In the case of China in particular, given how much of its territory is essentially corporate fiefs, it’s surprising that it hasn’t boiled into full-scale rebellion by now. (Japan too, but it’s a small enough place that probably it can be kept under a thumb).
The ICA often sends soldiers abroad to aid the corporate interests. There's also lots of mercenary companies around. As for funding it, well a board of executives is still full of humans, and they can get filled with pride and not want to hand something over even if that one thing is losing them money (Canada in OTL saw some protracted conflicts between the NWC and Hudson's Bay that nearly bankrupted both of them after all).And speaking of rebellions, one thing I have always been doubtful about when the notion of corporate states comes up is their willingness to pay for major wars: they’re in it for profits, so unless they can drawn on the military resources of a non-corporate state, they aren’t going to go in for really expensive wars. (The low-level conflict between the African corporate states seems rather believe for oligarchic states where the corporations _are_ the states). How much blood and treasure have the Dharmic states spent on backing the Corporations militarily, and what does the Indian in the street think of this?
It depends. Walof sees their citizens as valued employees and gives them some nice benefits (this nets them plenty of defectors). India is also a bit lacking in a social net (outside the Marathi). In Free Corporate Territories though . . . The Congo Free State would only be seen as a little bit harsh.Also, they seem unlikely to want to pay for social services, so I imagine the corporate run territories are libertarian terrors where you had better pay the fireman if you don't want to have them stand by while your house burns down, and the poor sell themselves into slavery to survive.
That is the case in most of the puppet states, they're just really corrupt.(Well, I suppose it depends on how much self-government the locals get: local non-corporate governments might pay for necessary services if they can afford it after the various corporation taxes have been extracted).
Yes, they're somewhere between a single nation and a close alliance.So, again with the colors perhaps, but is the African worker’s league three geographically separate states, one of which is entirely surrounded by corporate-controlled areas?
They are, but they're rather more united. The Freedom Union does manage a population nearly a third of that of India and has a lot fewer backroom assassinations or workers striking. They've got a population that's a lot more engaged and is capable of total mobilisation, while Indian citizens generally just aren't that enthusiastic about fighting.When it comes to numbers and resources, the Cooperative league seems rather badly outmatched.
Yes, they pushed north a bit.Did the Incas gain territory in the last war?
Most are Olympian Hindus (which means anything from Orthodox Olympian pantheon worshipping that fits what OTL Rome had to pure Hinduism which uses a few Roman names). There's a significant number of Christians and roughly as many Buddhists (combining to about 40% of the population), a few Norse Hindus, Jains, Daoists, Jews, etc.What religion do the Romans follow?
Yes. Morocco is beyond mere Map Keys. (Oops.)Is Morocco… Morocco?
Nitpicks:
12 – Britain and Ireland are hardly an “Island Chain.”
14 – The western Balkans seems a strange place to keep an Imperial capital.
Your nation seems pretty wanky in size, but my country on NationStates is essentially like Japan with a wankier economy (as if it didn't go into a "lost decade").The Empire of Asgard (the big light blue super nation) is my nation. It's a matriarchal hyperpower with about 3-4 billion super-women (no men) living in it.
The World shall speak English or perish! Poor Italy didn't manage to pull off a union with Sicily like the Greeks did with Cyprus.
I'm surprised the zombie hordes are still around though, you'd think they'd have shrunk by now. Though it seems that in this TL Africans and Asians are an endangered species, with Germanic states being in the lead across the board.
(Part of the grander world with a some nebulous PoDs here and there; it's kind of like Ill Bethisad, so don't judge me)
A lot has happened to Western Europe in the several hundred years since the start of the first millenium. The first major event came when the centuries-long Reconquista against the Muslim Moors stalled amongst the Iberian states (especially when an ambitious Cordoban shiekh took the throne, and began a campaign to retake many Christian territories for Islam), prompting said states to call a Crusade to finally push them out. This led many knights from across Europe to come to Iberia, among them a scion of the monarchs of France (who would go on to become Kings of Cordova). They would eventually expel the Muslims from Iberia, and even expand into North Africa, though they would establish their own kingdoms independent of the Iberian powers, to their utter consternation. Tensions would flare for the next hundred years between these Crusader states (and a handful of Free Cities on the mold of the Hanseatic cities to the north), especially an expansionist Castile-Leon eager to unite the peninsula under the rule of the House of Aviz-Castilla.
However, those crusades would bring about the downfall of France, ads they would spend the better part of the 1200s trying to keep the Castillians from annexing the Capetians' Iberian domains. Unfortunately, it left them unprepared for the English invasion during the Sixty Years War, in an attempt to wrest control of the throne for the Angevin Plantagenets. Though France fought bravely against the English invaders, it was completely shattered when Burgundy (continuing its support to the Plantagenets) and Aragon (wantting to expand into Languedoc and Provence) joined in England's side. Though Castile (due to their pro-French leanings despite their dispute over Andalucia) and Scotland (France's "Auld" ally so to speak) tried to blunt the Plantagenet advance, in the end France was broken but still surviving, with the English retaining their holdings in Aquitaine, Brittany, Normandy, and Calais, Aragon regaining the lands of the Kingdom of Toulouse and suzerainty over Provence, and Burgundy becoming an independent state. The French in the 14th would spend their time trying to regain their former lands.
Then, the Protestant Reformation came, finally shattering the religious unity of Western Europe for good. Whilst Burgundy (and the Dutch, who would break away from the Habsburg-run HRE) and Aquitaine (which by then broke off from English control) had been swayed by the teachings of one John Calvin, England (with Brittany in tow) and the Iberian powers firmly stayed true to the Pope. France itself became a battleground between Catholic and Reformed Protestant forces, and while King Henry II de Valois attempted a compromise, the Catholic barons' utter refusal (and intervention by England and Aragon) would lead to him breaking away from the Church entirely, gaining the support of the Protestant nations in the process. Ultimately, the Valois-Capetian monarchy would survive the next two hundred years until a republican revolt in 1825 would replace it with an SLA-based federal republic.
Your nation seems pretty wanky in size, but my country on NationStates is essentially like Japan with a wankier economy (as if it didn't go into a "lost decade").
(I don't really do roleplays, though)
It's an odd world, so I expected some more explaining needed.
Well, they are sort of like East India companies, but have also bought or developped control over a number of minor Indian nations (good for low taxes and such).
Free Corporate Territories are areas deemed 'backwards' and opened to corporate activities. Different districts are up for lease, and companies (or states) buy these for a 5 year period. These leases are managed by neutral administrators in Madagascar.
They were originally an alliance of Indian Christian merchants trying to aid their co-religious compatriots in Rome and elsewhere. They started making cash when oil became valuable and Hindu merchants more or less took over.
Rome and China have had varying areas under corporate rule (different governments and local officials are open to different bribers). It's been going on at varying levels for almost 200 years, and there have been rebellions when the demands were too strong.
China had some oddly placed capitals over the years, and one of the four capitals of the Tetrarchy was in Serbia. These things happen.
Something like that yes. Except with more minor powers.Sort of if the East India company ran Luxembourg and Denmark as well as India?
The lands are leased from an international oversight commitee. The funds are used to create some sort of checks and balances on the different mega corps (end result is the occasional unpopular 'CEO' gets arrested when he ticks off enough of the investors, or when something REALLY criminal happens).Who do they buy their leases from? And in the Americas, since most of the native American population will no doubt be ravaged by disease as OTL, who is doing the work? Are those areas not set up as settlement colonies full of imported slave/"long term contact" labor brought in from all over the world? Given what happened in *Australia, I don't see that ending well...
Basically. The still Christian chunks to push for a bit of missionary work.So, the "Christian" part is mostly a brand name nowadays.
Well the Indonesians weren't all slaves. A lot of middle management positions were given to them as well (they were closer and therefore cheaper). As for Rome and China, a few over ambitious rebellions with poor planning thinned the ranks of rebellious types to a degree (think about India in 1857, only very different lessons were learned). That and the Indians are less into the whole 'cultural superiority' thing that OTL Europe had. They just want to make a profit, they (mostly) don't want to force their religion on anyone and other unpleasant things OTL saw. Still, there was also a fair amount of luck (and a culture of strong personal/familial ambition for the Romans which meant betraying the nation for cash inspired many).I have trouble here. 200 years and no successful revolt against a corrupt, ineffectual regime? 200 years is a respectable lifetime for a Chinese dynasty not the puppet of foreign bloodsuckers. Unequal treaties and humiliations killed off the Qing OTL in only 70-odd. If a bunch of slave laborers [1] in Australia can pull it off, why not at least a part of China or Rome?
The capital of Sirmium was in a strategic position on the Danube border. I'm not sure what counts as an oddly placed capital for China.
Bruce
Page 2 isnt bad
Still need to fix those Confederate borders, probably gonna take away parts of Virginia and need to fix the border between Free and Puppet Mexico (Think North and South Korea hate here).
Cuba is NOT Confederate, its actually in a German sphere of influence, not a puppet, but it is heavily under the influence of the Kaiser.
Russia holds onto Alaska, since no one wanted it or could afford it.
Quebec broke off with backing from the United States, which then used that as an excuse to occupy the Maritime Provinces. Still hazy on the details.
As for workers, there's a mix. Natives got hit hard, but numbers have improved (this world has them up to about 10 million in the North America bit). There's also lots of low skill European and Chinese workers who are usually charged for their ticket home when their contracts expire. Also lots of African or Indian skilled or unskilled workers who get treated better. Some settlement has occured, but we're talking maybe 25 million Africans and Indians, with about 12 million other Eurasians who are on contract or have gone AWOL into the poorly settled wilderness. This has led to a fair number of 'Metis' folks. Slavery proper does still exist in Africa and South America, but North America and Siberia are mostly too empty for it.
As for Rome and China, a few over ambitious rebellions with poor planning thinned the ranks of rebellious types to a degree (think about India in 1857, only very different lessons were learned). That and the Indians are less into the whole 'cultural superiority' thing that OTL Europe had. They just want to make a profit, they (mostly) don't want to force their religion on anyone and other unpleasant things OTL saw. Still, there was also a fair amount of luck (and a culture of strong personal/familial ambition for the Romans which meant betraying the nation for cash inspired many).
Harbin was fairly out of the way, Beijing is honestly kind of on the edge of Han China and Xi'an is on the edge of the main population regions. Not terrible locations, but neither is the West Balkans when this Rome controls the Pannonian Basin.