The Diamond Map Thread

Just a place for old Diamond maps. To start with:

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Diamond:
POD/events include Tartessos being able to hold off Carthage; a surviving Alexandrine Empire (which is now limited to the Balkans & Anatolia, but is still the 'cultural grandfather' of Europe); the Celts banding together and smashing Rome; Massilia building a respectable republic; and strong Celtic nations - Gaul, Albion, and Ierne (although the Angles invaded and were assimilated into southern Albion).
 
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A nice Draka

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This one had a timeline:

 
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(Apparently there's another map I missed)


Diamond: This is the world about 60 years after the discovery of the New World; Cordoba, like Spain of OTL, got to the Caribbean first, but the Angevin Empire is intent on seizing the potential riches of Mexico. Just last year, they took Cuba from Cordoba, and are poised to invade central America.

War also looms in Europe, as Cordoba has hammered out an alliance with its old foe, the Mosul Empire. The two Islamic nations - enlightened, beautiful Cordoba, and the fundamentalist and tyrannical Mosul - may be more than the shaky alliance of the Angevin, Holy Roman Empire, and Hungary can handle...
 
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Diamond:

This world probably (?) stems from France doing MUCH better in the mid to late 1700s. I don't have a whole lot worked out for a timeline, since this was done mainly for fun, but some things on the map include Spain not having any colonies anymore (lost 'em all to Britain in a war), Britain doing away with their monarchy completely and reorganizing as a republic; Virginia and Romania are rather repressive theocracies; Russia has turned their attention more eastwards than westwards, and firmly control their American possessions and many Pacific islands.
 
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An alt-plague where both Europe and the Middle East get wacked harder by the Black Plague, and new power centers emerge in the OTL lightest-hit areas.
 
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Diamond:

Here's something I've been playing around with, possibly as a plane for Alterverse. Here, there was never a Genghis Khan; the Mongols never united, and the Shahdom of Khwarizim blossomed into a mecca of learning and culture on par with Umayyad Spain. With no united Mongol presence, the Jin Chinese Empire never falls, and goes on to become the major power in the East. The Song are still in control in the south, and the Dual Empires are bitter enemies.

In the west, Saladin's Ayyubid Caliphate remains in place in Egypt and controls the Arabian peninsula as well. To conquer Muslim affluence, the Holy Roman Empire has evolved into a true empire - no longer is the Pope a major player in the political arena. In fact, religion overall is a much less-heated subject than in OTL. With greater prosperity in the middle east comes less need for expansion into Europe. For the last century or so, cultural exchanges between the Christian and Muslim worlds have been growing and there is a cautious camaraderie developing. In this world, the great enemy is looking more and more to be the Jin Empire.
 
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Diamond:
This is a world where the Normans of Sicily and France/England became one united empire. Along with Castile, they colonized the New World (the Treaty of Oviedo split the Americas north and south between them). Irish refugees, fleeing the Norman takeover of their island in the 15th century, fled to *North America and established a state along the *St. Lawrence River.

Poland, meanwhile, stayed strong and created a globe-spanning trade empire, sort of like the Dutch of OTL writ large. As the 20th century dawned, the world had been wracked by a nuclear conflict between the Ottoman and Chinese empires (both industrialized in the early 18th century). A movement called Collectivism (think Communism combined with Freemasonry), created by a Bulgarian called Vasceny, spread throughout the broken remains of the former superpowers, and by 1960, the two nations were strong once more... and this time, they were allied.

The Triple Alliance of Normandy, Castile, and Poland is all that stands between freedom and complete Collectivist victory.


Diamond answers questions:
fortyseven said:
Diamond's what's the Michigan-Ontario state?
It's an Irish refugee state founded when the Normans conquered Ireland.
B_Munro said:
Strikes me that the Poles must have had good relations with the Normans for a looong time to build an overseas empire with that very chokeable single access to the North Sea...and boy the Chinese collectivists must be mad about the Alliance military bases in Imperial China. Fun stuff.

Bruce
At one time Poland occupied Denmark (jointly with Normandy), and today they still own the Skaggerak and Kattegat for all intents and purposes, with massive coastal citadels maintaining their access to the North Sea.

The Chinese Empire in the south is all that remains of their once mighty empire; and yes, it is propped up by the Triple Alliance.

Othniel said:
Its a very pretty map if I do say so myself...
Thanks!
WhatIsAUserName said:
Korea's divided once more!

I do wonder why China wouldn't go after the southern coastal provinces and Tibet, and instead headed to Siberia.

Same thing with Turkey and Turkestan as opposed to the rest of Europe and Egypt.

I do wonder why Castile didn't change its name to Spain, Iberia, or something along those lines. Did they conquer Aragon and Portugal, or were there unions?
Click to expand...
I thought about having the remnant Chinese Empire hanging on in Siberia and northern Manchuria; maybe it would work better that way... I just felt like the Imperialists would be easier to reinforce by the Alliance in the south like that.

As far as Turkey goes, Egypt and huge chunks of Africa were once controlled by them, but after the nuclear war between the Ottomans and China, the three empires of the Alliance moved into Africa to 'protect' it, and Turkey took the easier road of gobbling up various Russian and central Asian kingdoms.

RE Castile... I just like that name. :) They are united with Portugal. Aragon is independent, but is a minor power allied with the Triple Alliance.


Thande said:
Fine map Diamond. If the Americas were divided north and south between Normandy and Castile, where did Mexico come from? Is it Aztec or based on another Castilian colony?

Also I wonder that some of the Norman names sound a bit too English for a Normandy that includes all of France and part of Italy...
Mexico is sort of analogous to the USA; it's a former Norman colony.

I wasn't sure about the names either; I need to do some work on that...
 
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Diamond:

The Black Plague wipes 75% of Europe. In Scandinavia, northern Germany, and Ireland, European civilization survives, and those three regions eventually form Svearika, Germania, and Eriu. Islam spreads throughout southern, central, and eastern Europe; dead Al-Andalus is repopulated by settlers from the Maghrib and farther afield.

China discovers the Americas (The Sun Continents) by mistake in the mid-1600s AD and proceeds to make the Inca a vassal state. But plague ravages the New World, and China, thinking the land is cursed, mostly withdraws. In India, the progressive Mughal Empire and the southern Hindu Empire of Vijayanagara begin to industrialize and embark on their own age of exploration, colonizing vast tracts of southern Africa, Australia, and the South Pacific. Vijayanagaran sailors, blown off-course in 1760 or thereabouts, 're-discover' South America.

The western Muslims have not been idle either; Andalusian sailors discover and settle the islands of the Karib Sea in the 1740s; by 1850, the two Sun Continents of the New World are being steadily colonized by Indian and Muslim nations, and by a re-interested China. By this time the continents have come by their present-day names: *North America is known as Balad, loosely translated from Arabic as 'Wide Open Plain', while *South America is called Al-Ghala, or 'Land of Ghouls'.

Meanwhile, the natives of the Sun Continents have overcome the worst of their bouts with Old World sickness, and are rebuilding. Exploration and colonization is slower in this timeline, and many powerful and second-tier nations arise in the New World. The greatest of these are the Tawantinsuyu (the Inca), who, having been nearly destroyed by foreign plagues, develop into a near-fascist, xenophobic confederation, overthrowing their nobility; and the Houdenausee League, a democratic union of dozens of tribes and statelets from Vinland to the Misippah River.

The Chinese control most of western Balad, which is known as Fusang, as well as two colonies in far southern Balad, including Jinggu, whose mighty Great Canal allows transit between the Karib Sea and the Great Ocean.

In northern Al-Ghala, the land is a patchwork of Chinese- and Muslim-descended states. The culture here is unlike anything seen in OTL, as Chinese, Muslims, Tawantinsuyans, and dozens of other peoples interacted to form a society combining elements of each of their cultures. This was one of the heartlands of the Industrial Revolution (along with Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, and Vijayanagara), and its people have one of the highest standards of living on the planet.

In southern Al-Ghala, the Tawantinsuyu hold sway in the west, jealously guarding their mountain passes against the Qalabid Sultanate and the former Indian colonies in the southeast. In the far south, the Vijayanagara still hold the colony of Ghurala.

Back in Africa, Islam spread throughout most of the northern part of the continent. Here, the mighty Songhai and Egyptian Caliphates hold sway, while their smaller neighbors attempt to play the two giants against each other. To the south and east is an anomaly: the Kingdom of Ethiopia, the only majority-Christian nation outside of northern Europe. Eastern Africa is a patchwork of mixed Indian and Muslim states, while the Kongo Imperium, once an Andalusi vassal, controls the interior. The Imperium exists in a state of near-perpetual civil war, as dozens of contenders to the throne vie for control. At the southern tip of the continent lies Komalajamin, the jewel in the colonial crown of Vijayanagara.
 
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Angevins, take two

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Imajin said:
What is the large North Italian stat that seems to encompass Switzerland and Austria?
On my map? It's the Kingdom of Italy. Capital is Milan. It was the birthplace of this TL's Industrial Revolution.
 
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Angevins and Mongols

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Diamond:
POD 1: Henry II Plantagenet defeats France in 1159 and absorbs the French Royal Demesne into the Angevin Empire. With no real 'France', the Angevins become western Europe's most powerful realm.

POD 2: The Mongols plow through Poland and Hungary and into Germany in 1250. By 1260 they are firmly ensconced as far west as the Rhine, and are raiding into Angevin lands. Italy holds out another decade, but eventually falls.

More than four centuries later, most of Europe is still nominally Mongol. In the east, the great Khanates of Novgorod and Cumania hold sway; in the Balkans, the Khanate of Hungary wars with its former ally, the Seljuk Sultanate. And in Germany and Italy, the Holy Roman Empire has been co-opted and reborn as the Holy Roman Khanate. Most European Mongols are Christian, and there is a 'Captive Pope' in Rome (and has been ever since Rome was sacked by a Mongol army in 1272). The 'true' Pope in London calls for renewed Crusades against the Mongol heretics, but the Angevins are more worried about the waxing power of the Hafsid Caliphate, which dominates much of western and northern Africa and is competing with the Angevins for colonies in the two great continents discovered across the Atlantic fifty years ago.

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Not quite Islam

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Diamond:
Another map, this one from a TL that I started and just lost interest in. The main POD is the Celtic Britons throwing out the Romans around 70AD, along with different migrations of the Germanic and Slavic tribes. The Goths never expand into central and western Europe, but instead push eastward after they are beaten back decisively by the Romans. They act as a kind of breakwater for the other invaders, the Huns, the Vandals, etc, rerouting, and in some cases, assimilating them.

There is no Islam per se in this TL, but Eyptians and Arabs embrace a schismatical sect of Christianity which mimics many tenets of Islam. They eventually capture Rome, which becomes the capital of their Saracen Caliphate. The Vandals push through the ruins of the Roman Empire and conquer Spain, and there they stay. In India, the Gupta Empire goes through several incarnations over the centuries; the current version is a weird hybrid of Hindu and Persian cultures, with strong Saracen cultural elements. In the far east, there are two strong competing Chinese empires (no Mongol unification in this TL), and a unified Japan descended from the Yamato.

The Americas were discovered in around 1500, but no major exploration or settlement was undertaken until probably 1700, and these Europeans are markedly slower in their expansion than their counterparts in OTL. In Africa, Saracen Christianity has spread throughout the sub-Saharan region, stabilizing the area and giving rise to strong and vibrant new kindoms.

Technology in this world is a mish-mash; on the one hand, there are efficient and widespread airships and telegraph systems, but many armies still fight with peasant levies equipped with polearms, crossbows, or primitive arquebuses. Gunpowder is a secret jealously guarded by the Christian churches of Europe and Asia, but even petty princelings have access to massive, steam-driven catapults, 'land-leviathans', and automobiles.
 
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