Map Thread XVIII

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Wowee, this was a beast to conquer. Here is my cover/soft reboot of @rvbomally's The Spice Must Flow, a favorite alternate history scenario of mine. The premise is a geopolitical freeze in the Age of Discovery, alongside some other twists and turns that led to a Dutch-Portuguese Cold War. Enjoy!

Due to the enormous size of the write up this is a cropped version, just to show the map, please visit my DeviantArt to view the complete map!

POTbIih.png
 
Wowee, this was a beast to conquer. Here is my cover/soft reboot of @rvbomally's The Spice Must Flow, a favorite alternate history scenario of mine. The premise is a geopolitical freeze in the Age of Discovery, alongside some other twists and turns that led to a Dutch-Portuguese Cold War. Enjoy!

Due to the enormous size of the write up this is a cropped version, just to show the map, please visit my DeviantArt to view the complete map!

I also have checked it out, and am also very impressed. Spectacular! Questions:
  • What does SODA stand for?
  • What's Tongyism? Is it some kind of communism analogue?
  • What in the name of all the ASBs made the Netherlands that big?
Really cool nonetheless!
 
I have done so, and am very favorable impressed - an excellent cover! Bravo.

Thank you so much!

I also have checked it out, and am also very impressed. Spectacular! Questions:
  • What does SODA stand for?
  • What's Tongyism? Is it some kind of communism analogue?
  • What in the name of all the ASBs made the Netherlands that big?
Really cool nonetheless!

Thank you!
  • Southern Ocean Defense Association - (SOVV in Afrikaans, ZOVV in Dutch, and ADOS in Castilian, acronym in English because I like SODA as an acronym) - sort of a tripatriate agreement between the Graciosans, the Kaap Afrikaans, and the New Hollanders in response to Portuguese activities in Antarctica, as well as serving as a defensive association against Portuguese threats in the Southern Hemisphere. Mostly focused on naval exercises.
  • Tongyi is the pinyin Anglicized Mandarin word for "Unity". And, yup! Exactly a communism analogue, it stemmed out of the alluded to Chinese Civil War, driven by the biggest people's faction that is sort of a weird mash of Napoleonic, socialist, nationalist, and liberal ideas, that, unlike in OTL, didn't really have a chance to evolve here due to a lack of an American or French Revolution. So, yes, in a sense China is this worlds bastion of democratic thought against the standard reactionary, monarchical imperialism. Along this line, although Britain is a republic, it is more along the lines of an aristocratic republic common of the Age of Discovery, having stemmed from a Crowellian-esque civil war in the 1600s.
  • A completely different evolution of the HRE alongside different linguistic evolution led to a early manifestation of a Dutch power to rival Austria and Bohemia amongst feudal circles. When the HRE fell apart due to more widespread religious infighting the Dutch snapped up all these little West German states that had been under heavy Dutch influence for eons. The language of the Dutch territories in OTL Germany is like a weird mix between the two, which is difficult to classify linguistically.
Obviously a lot of this is immensely ASB, but I'm just trying to semi-logically fill in gaps to assist in world-building.
 
The same continent as before, but centuries earlier. The year is 401 of the Imperial Calendar.
At the start of the 5th century, the Old Empire of the West was standing strong. For four hundred years, the Empire had clung to peace and power though the use of dragons and the mysteriously gifted people who could tame and ride them. The dragon-riders corps would fly out to mediate disputes and enforce the empire's will, through violence and fire if necessary. Superiority through air power made them nearly invincible. The arrival of human tribes from the Transucral Desert prompted the founding of the Empire, as a confederation for mutual defense among the elven, dwarven, and gnomish kingdoms and city-states. The humans eked out a series of tribal kingdoms to the south and east, in the Eldun Plateau and the Athua Valley. The Empire turned to using these human kingdoms as client states, a buffer between itself and the more centralized empires of Aendrilad, Tethar, and Mocryae. The Western Empire, with its cradle in the Eldun River delta and the Dorei Estuary, expanded to the north into the fertile Karkuz Plateau and the resource-rich Skyshroud Mountains. The conquest of the latter became a long, drawn-out war as a settler population of sun-elves came into intractable conflict with the native wood-elves.
In the year 400, two ominous events occurred simultaneously. From the same desert from which the humans arose, a new barbarian threat emerged: the Orcs, a nomadic people of horsemanship and unparalleled discipline, driven from their homeland of the eastern steppes into the Aendrilad Desert. Their khans led an exodus from the Great Oasis to greener pastures in the west, emerging at the frontiers of the Empire and its human allies. The second event was the sudden disappearance of the dragons and their riders; their barracks were torched, with neither anywhere to be found. Without their air superiority, the Empire was not sufficiently capable of defending against the new invaders. The western kingdoms and cities were slow to react to the troubles in the eastern frontier, and without the dragonriders the Empire lacked the means to respond quickly in any centralized way. By the end of the next year, they lost precious fertile land in the upper Athua Valley and Drelawin Valley regions to the Orcs.

401.png
 

zhropkick

Banned
Wowee, this was a beast to conquer. Here is my cover/soft reboot of @rvbomally's The Spice Must Flow, a favorite alternate history scenario of mine. The premise is a geopolitical freeze in the Age of Discovery, alongside some other twists and turns that led to a Dutch-Portuguese Cold War. Enjoy!

Due to the enormous size of the write up this is a cropped version, just to show the map, please visit my DeviantArt to view the complete map!

POTbIih.png
Making the Netherlands' European borders look like this in EU3 is one of the most enjoyable things a person can do with their time, there is nothing like seeing the colour orange engulf half of Northwestern Europe. Absolutely aesthetically-pleasing.
 
  • Southern Ocean Defense Association - (SOVV in Afrikaans, ZOVV in Dutch, and ADOS in Castilian, acronym in English because I like SODA as an acronym)
You should find a parallel acronym so that everyone in the center of North America calls it "POP". lol

.
 
And the next
First off, this map and all the others you have created are superbly made!

Secondly, I'm somewhat curious about the unified British state depicted in this map - my understanding has always been that Sub-Roman Britain was divided between multiple kingdoms (such as those described by Gildas) who would occasionally accept the overlordship of a King of the Britons.
 
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First off, this map and all the others you have created are superbly made!

Secondly, I'm somewhat curious about the unified British state depicted in this map - my understanding has always been that Sub-Roman Britain was divided between multiple kingdoms (such as those described by Gildas) who would occasionally accept the overlordship of a King of the Britons.

Thanks.
And yeah, it surely was - well atleast for some time around the date in my map and surely a bit later - a bit difficult to make up an exact date when the provinces of Britain changed to the smaller
kingdoms of Sub-Roman Britain so i depict it in this map that way, although not entirely right. Its also not meant to be an exact unified state - these europe-maps are mostly really simplified.
I'll try to depict it better in the next map or atleast another way.
 
Some WIPs that I have:
Otto-French Superpowers wip.png

Have not been working on this for some time but the POD is the Siege of Vienna ending with a Ottoman victory and the Franco-Ottoman Alliance is currently dominant in the world. Current year is around 19th-20th century.
Republics vs Monarchies wip.png

A cold War between Monarchies and Republics. The POD concerns the French Revolution which makes the revolutionaries far more radically republican. After the Revolutionary Wars ended the British used their free-time to defeat the USA in several wars ending with Canadian annexation of everything west of the Appalachians with the remnants separated from each other and made into Dominions. Spain and Portugal are both monarchists Gran Colombia is an Empire ruled by house Bolivar, Rio Plata is a Spanish dominion and Brazil is a Portuguese one. Brazil has lost all that land because they tired to have a revolution. Mexico is a Hapsburg empire, Central American Nations and Chile are neutral republics mostly distancing themselves from the European republican system by either electing a president for life (e.g. the Doge of the Most Serene Republic of El Salvador) or for a very short time (a year at most or half a year) like the the Presidents of Chile and Honduras. Denmark-Norway, Prussia-Poland, Saxony-Bohemia, Bavaria-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg are pro-republican monarchies with Hungary, Moldavia, (European) Russia, Finland(-Estonia), Sweden, Greece and Lithuania are republics that are fully allied to the European Union of Republics.
WIP.png

A post WW1 thing that pretty much haven't been touched yet but my Idea is Germany, Ottomans, UK, Italy, Japan, Serbia, Romania vs Austria-Hungary, France, Russia. There may have been more lesser powers involved.
 
My other idea that I have no maps on is that an alliance between Prussia, Sardinia-Piedmont and Ottomans being created after the Congress of Vienna mostly against the Austrians with the goal to unify Germany/Italy and keep the Balkans in the Ottoman Empire. that leads to several wars including wars including all of Europe east of the Rhine and the creation of two alliance blocs. the Coalition for Justice (the aforementioned alliance + Sweden-Norway and Iran) vs the Holy League (originally Austria, Russia and lesser German, Italian and Balkan states until they got eaten up with France and Denmark joining the alliance)
 
You should find a parallel acronym so that everyone in the center of North America calls it "POP". lol

.
The People's Organization of the Periphery rebel group. After violent revolution, would establish the same type of government in all but name.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
The People's Organization of the Periphery rebel group. After violent revolution, would establish the same type of government in all but name.

Best is if it's actually a related organisation (like the more radical branch, akin to the IRA). After things get settled, they formally combine to form... SODA-POP.
 
Alright, first thing: If you're going to continue that QBAM, please for the love of all that is holy use a more up-to-date map. There is nothing indicating the spherical-ness of the Earth on that, and all the countries are as blobby as a ball of clay.
Second map's alright, but vertical lines don't work that well on Worlda - you probably should take circumference into account (and/or copy the pixel-curves of the nearest state/province that has straight-line borders)
 
cross posting from the oneshot thread



The War That Came Early Postwar1.png


This is my kinda sorta pseudo-sequel to Turtledoves the War That Came early.

so some notes

  • POD Here is a war starting over Sudetenland and from there it ends up with Brits and Frenchmen fighting alongside the Germans in Russia, a Japanese push North and then south and Britain going back to fighting Germany eventually followed by France. The series ends with a German military coup bringing Germany out of the war and the War against Japan still unresolved.
  • So first things first Japan loses, but with no atom bomb, Allied forces slog through a costly ground campaign that ends with the Emperor dead and Japan shattered. Soviet forces manage to take Hokkaido while the allies set up their occupations zones in the south. Modern day Japan is a republic and is poorer than OTL though not massively so [1].
  • China is a mess with US intervention and Soviet backing of the CCP quickly turning China into a battleground. The war ending in 1952 with a nuke dropped on Beijing [2] and a ceasefire along the front.
  • Germany is still a military junta under the rule of its aging Wehrmacht generals. Its allies in the Unity Pakt are fairly similar authoritarian states that are growing ever more unstable [3].
  • The United States is still a superpower albeit one more focused in the Pacific and Latin America. US interventions in Colombia and Nicaragua are starting to turn into slogs and some damned things along the Yangtze is threatening to restart the China civil war. Race relations are about the same as OTL no European campaign compensated by the shoulder rubbing in China and Japan and now Colombia and Nicaragua. Americans still feel they can reshape the world whether that feeling lasts or not depends on the result of its Latin American adventures.
  • Italy bowed out soon after Germany but not before being pushed out of most of Cyrenaica. The Grand Council of Fascists have pushed out Mussolini but have still not reinstated democracy. As an increasingly discontent populace protests over stagnant economic growth and Italian boys being sent home in coffins from the war in Tripolitania the Italian government is looking for a short victorious war against the UAR.
  • India, as well as a united Bengal [4], form the core of a "Non-Aligned movement". Richer than OTL with no real beef with Pakistan [5] and a slightly lessened economic shock from the partition.
  • The USSR is both stronger and weaker than OTL. Stronger due to a much less successful Barbossa and weaker due to no massive Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe. Still, the USSR is funding communist socialist and just anti-colonial groups across the world and is setting the stage for the African Bush Wars [6].
  • Britain [7] and France are tied to the hip keeping a watch on Germany and the USSR. Dealing with commitments in Africa and Asia and maintaining the Empire. Frace leads a group of like-minded European democracies all of whom are terrified of Germany while British backed Baghdad pact helps contain German and Soviet influence. The Anglo-French withdrawal from colonialism is much slower with France being committed to the idea of a true Federal Empire while Britain works to turn the Empire into a true Commonwealth of Nations.
  • The world is gonna get a bit more turbulent. The African Bush Wars are only a year away, Italy's short victorious war will turn out to be not so short a China remains a big question mark. Meanwhile, in the PRC, the power struggle between Mao and the rest of the CCP is reaching its Apex just as a battalion of KMT troops cross the ceasefire line. Arms buildups in the North and Black Sea, Javanese threats against Canberra and Medan. UAR ambitions against the Suez and the Kingdom of the Levant whose large Jewish minority is in its regular debate about secession. And some new musical group from Liverpool, of all places, has begun to gain serious attention in the British press.

[1] Marshal plan funds that didn't go to Europe
[2] The US was looking to see how they did in actual war
[3] Poland's military government got couped a few months ago, The Romanian Iron Guard movement got offed by King Micheal, Slovaks are protesting in the streets, another Turkish military coup, Hungary, and Bulgaria remains remarkably calm.
[4] No Bengal famine plus some butterflies when it came time for Independence
[5] Kashmir actually divided along religious lines
[6] Delayed so far by a carrot and stick policy from Britain and France but a massacre by French troops and a new rebellion in Kenya will be the spark that lights the fuse
[7] The British military government finally stepped down following the end of the Pacific War
 
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Alright, first thing: If you're going to continue that QBAM, please for the love of all that is holy use a more up-to-date map. There is nothing indicating the spherical-ness of the Earth on that, and all the countries are as blobby as a ball of clay.

Yeah that is actually one of my earliest works. I first began it some years ago then dropped it for a long while, returned for sometime but that was a one of thing. So yeah if I decide to actually continue that map I will probably use a Worlda. Shame about all those provincial/feudal boundaries in Europe though.
 
Two maps I created for university essays/dissertations. They're OTL, but I spent a lot of time on them, so maybe someone could use them as reference for anything Scottish!

kingdom_of_scotland__c__1405_by_procrastinating2much-dcq3s6n.png


kingdom_of_scotland__c__1286_by_procrastinating2much-dcq3rqr.png
References:

Grant, A., 2007. Franchises North of the Border: Baronies and Regalities in Medieval Scotland. [Online]
Available at: eprints.lancs.ac.uk/633/
[Accessed 7 October 2018].

Lynch, M., 1992. Scotland: A New History. Pimlico ed. London: Pimlico.

McNeill, P. G. & MacQueen, H. L., 1998. An Atlas of Scottish History to 1707. Revised ed. Edinburgh: The Scottish Medievalists.
 

ST15RM

Banned
Two maps I created for university essays/dissertations. They're OTL, but I spent a lot of time on them, so maybe someone could use them as reference for anything Scottish!



References:

Grant, A., 2007. Franchises North of the Border: Baronies and Regalities in Medieval Scotland. [Online]
Available at: eprints.lancs.ac.uk/633/
[Accessed 7 October 2018].

Lynch, M., 1992. Scotland: A New History. Pimlico ed. London: Pimlico.

McNeill, P. G. & MacQueen, H. L., 1998. An Atlas of Scottish History to 1707. Revised ed. Edinburgh: The Scottish Medievalists.
Your name definitely applies here. Wow!
 
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