What would need to change about the new world for it to dominate the old world?

In our world, there were supposedly superior circumstances for development in the old world, which led to it eventually dominating the new world. I would increase the number of people who moved across the Bering strait, as well as making a few species like horses or mammoths survive the ice age.
 
For the New World to actually be more powerful than the Old would require a change in its size and shape. The old world is much larger and has more fertile river valleys which means it will inherently have a greater population.
If the Americas had the large range of native domesticable plants and animals that the old world had, that would probably make it more powerful, though not enough to dominate.
 
In our world, there were supposedly superior circumstances for development in the old world, which led to it eventually dominating the new world. I would increase the number of people who moved across the Bering strait, as well as making a few species like horses or mammoths survive the ice age.

The wheel ?
 
For the New World to actually be more powerful than the Old would require a change in its size and shape. The old world is much larger and has more fertile river valleys which means it will inherently have a greater population.
If the Americas had the large range of native domesticable plants and animals that the old world had, that would probably make it more powerful, though not enough to dominate.

Geological POD's are ASB.
 

jahenders

Banned
Without physical changes to the landmasses, I'd say some options or contributors might be:
- Humanity originally evolves in the Americas (vice Africa/Asia). The spread across the landbridge is reversed. You wind up with way more human density in the Americas than in the old world
- Perhaps you could have Home Sapiens evolve in the Americas while Home Neanderthalus is in Eurasia Eventually, they collide, but probably much later. Yes, this probably implies some form of convergent evolution or that some common ancestor winds up in both areas -- perhaps other land bridges.
- An additional/alternate change would be the presence of more, larger draft animals in the Americas. You need something on par with oxen or horses to have serious development of wagons, chariots, etc. Heavy use of wheels drives development of lots of other things -- gears, engines, etc.
- Some more and larger catastrophes in the old world that wipe out huge population segments -- bigger plagues, huge meteor strikes near major cities (Thebes, Rome, Babylon, etc.).
- Different evolution of diseases so that when the old and new world meet, the new world is NOT significantly impacted by disease transfer, but the old world is (MUCH more than IOTL). For instance, you could have huge plagues break out after the return of Columbus and other explorers. In that case, you might eventually have people decide that visiting the new world isn't worth the death they bring, delaying colonization and exploration. Couple that with a native new world population NOT significantly affected by European disease and you definitely have a different power dynamic.

In our world, there were supposedly superior circumstances for development in the old world, which led to it eventually dominating the new world. I would increase the number of people who moved across the Bering strait, as well as making a few species like horses or mammoths survive the ice age.
 
Actually North America is well placed for a huge civilization in the Mississippi valley. It was the center of an extensive set of interlaced native trade networks IOTL that spanned the whole continent.
If adequate founder crops are domesticated early enough, and the native peoples therefore an adequate tech base and population density, you may powerful states emerge in North America.
As the United States show, the continent's geography in itself is not a problem.
Disease is going to hurt no matter what. Perhaps, you can have an actively contact through the Bering corridor (or other venues, although they require much earlier oceanic travel) that keeps things somewhat balanced (and helps with tranfers of technology and domesticates, though of course they'd be two-way).
North America may get an edge in that has a natural connecting system of waterways across much of the continent (so does Atlantic South America actually, with the big Amazon and Parana/Plata basins).
 
Actually North America is well placed for a huge civilization in the Mississippi valley. It was the center of an extensive set of interlaced native trade networks IOTL that spanned the whole continent.
If adequate founder crops are domesticated early enough, and the native peoples therefore an adequate tech base and population density, you may powerful states emerge in North America.
As the United States show, the continent's geography in itself is not a problem.
Disease is going to hurt no matter what. Perhaps, you can have an actively contact through the Bering corridor (or other venues, although they require much earlier oceanic travel) that keeps things somewhat balanced (and helps with tranfers of technology and domesticates, though of course they'd be two-way).
North America may get an edge in that has a natural connecting system of waterways across much of the continent (so does Atlantic South America actually, with the big Amazon and Parana/Plata basins).

This. You need agriculture to develop/spread to Eastern North America sooner to give complex civilisations a bigger edge. And preferably find a way to get the potato to spread outside of the Andes. Maybe the sweet potato too. An earlier and longer-lasting Polynesian contact with settlement of the Galapagos could really help the New World, and hopefully give some links between the Andes and Mesoamerica and why not Mississippi, which seem like they'd be the three main centers of New World civilisations.

Of course, the North American horse surviving would certainly help.
 
Isn't everything that could be done ASB? I don't see a solution mentioned that isn't ASB. Even the horse surviving I think falls under the rules of ASB right? Certainly Homo sapiens evolving in the New World instead of Africa is ASB (how would the predecessor have gotten there in the first place...?), changing landmasses, etc.
 
Ancient contact between the two brings the old world domesticated plants and livestock over to the new, but not the new world crops to the old.

That shold go a long long way.
 
More livestock.

More livestock leads to better agricultural development and easier movement of materials, which leads to faster development of civilizations and cities. Horses allowed faster communication and could carry heavy loads much better than humans in the old world.

This also means more diseases, which actually works in the Americans' favor.

To quote CGPgrey, "It has nothing to do with the strategy and everything to do with the starter map".
 
Ancient contact between the two brings the old world domesticated plants and livestock over to the new, but not the new world crops to the old.

That shold go a long long way.
How does this happen though? If there is "ancient" contact, it presumably means you already have seagoing cultures in the Old World, which implies they already have their head start.

I don't see how to meet the OP without resorting to geological/evolutionary PODs, which are defined as ASB.
 
Technically it is possible to give the Americas and Oceania a fighting chance with increased trade between them. If I were to do a very basic timeline, it would go something like this.......................................................................

(1) Americas= They already have the llama,guinea pig and muscovy duck as domesticates, plus at least two viable agricultural crop packages. And there are other domesticable animals, the paca,agouti,chinchilla,mara,hutia,pudu,
chuckwalla and several species of parrots. More tricky but maybe manageable would be domestication of peccaries and rheas. And it's not that far of a stretch for some tribes to domesticate jaguarundis and ocelots as verminators or some other New World small cat. The Andeans had some good boats and likewise the Carib were fairly successful in the Caribbean. And the Arawaks were very resourceful as well. So maybe a crisis of sorts, perhaps a war,populasion explosion or bad politics to necessitate trade, maybe looking for allies against powerful enemies even?

(2) Oceania= Meaning Melanesia,Micronesia,Polynesia and Australia. The Polynesians are among the worlds greatest navigators and the Melanesians and Micronesians aren't too bad themselves. They have chickens,pigs and the poi dog as livestock.
As always, Australia got the short end of the stick in that regard, yet the Aboriginals are very resourceful and inventive. We know that in the southern part of Australia practiced a form of aquaculture, digging weirs and trapping eels, plus used fire-stick farming. So it's not that far off that they can cultivate some wattle trees like the Golden Wattle and/or Black Wattle and some types of yams. In fact Australia has quite a few domesticable plants. And they have some birds that are good for that as well, emus,brush turkeys,bustards and again parrots. As for the northern part, well it's a good thing that the Makassans traded with the Yolngu and maybe earlier contact could've lead to a more maritime culture. Also contact with the Maori would've been mutually beneficial, likewise contact and/or trade with one the New Guinean tribes.
Anyway, for the rest of Oceania, I'd say a population explosion or some bloody conflict that necessitated further exploration and trade.

(3) Contact and trade between Oceania and the Americas. Or rather, greater and more frequent. Definitely plausible given what we know about the Polynesians and to be honest, several Pacific Northwest Tribes are pretty good in their canoes as well. So let's say that the Rapa Nui thrive and colonize other nearby islands. They conduct trade with the Andean people and Mesoamericans and is a way for crops and livestock to be exchanged between North and South America. And as a bonus, Andean crops and livestock reach New Zealand.

(4) Increased contact with Indonesia and Siberia. Reindeer domestication would help in the Arctic at least. Hell, a surviving Vinland is a good thing for both Norse and Native Americans alike.

Anyway, this is a bare-bones idea and even then I doubt that the Americas and Oceania would have the edge over Europe,Asia and Africa because the Old World is older, has tons of history,conflict and spreadable disease between them. But it would be neat if they a fighting chance.
And yes I'd love to see Ice and Mice/Land of Red and Gold scenarios in this situation.
 
Isn't everything that could be done ASB? I don't see a solution mentioned that isn't ASB. Even the horse surviving I think falls under the rules of ASB right? Certainly Homo sapiens evolving in the New World instead of Africa is ASB (how would the predecessor have gotten there in the first place...?), changing landmasses, etc.
Is the horse surviving really ASB? I mean, if there was any chance of it surviving the ice age, it wouldn't be ASB. Horses aren't exactly megafaunga in the sense of giant sloths and camels, and of course mammoths.
 
Is the horse surviving really ASB? I mean, if there was any chance of it surviving the ice age, it wouldn't be ASB. Horses aren't exactly megafaunga in the sense of giant sloths and camels, and of course mammoths.

As I understand evolution and geologic changes are by default ASB topics on AH.com. To make the horse survive in America is by definition an evolutionary change.
 
I believe there is an interesting documentary about this called "Guns, Germs and Steel'.

Firstly: The Old World has all sorts of animals that are hugely important in an economic context that were not present in the New World; in particular horses and cattle provide all sorts of advantages from increased mobility, to increased agricultural productivity (ie. pulling plows) to increasing interstate trade and commerce (ie. carrying goods long distance) to food (milk, meat) and tool making (leather) that gave the Eurasian cultures huge intrinsic advantages. The New World cultures pretty much had domesticated llamas which provided wool and meet but couldn't provide much in the way of labour or transportation (ie. couldn't ride them long distances or hook a plow to them). It is important not to underestimate the huge advantage the variety of domestic animals gave to the Old World civilizations and how essential those animals were to the technical and commercial development of those societies. There needs to be an early POD where these Old World domestic animals are introduced into the New World. Secondly the Eurasian landmass is much larger then the Americas and importantly is east to west oriented (wheras the Americas are a North-South oriented land-mass), meaning there is much larger band of temperate climate area in Eurasia then in the Americas and overall much more habitable land. This allows for more civilizations to develop and increases the potential size and complexity of their trade networks. This is a pretty hard obstacle to overcome because it is based on geography. Lastly, and relatedly, the isolation of the New World Cultures left them extremely vulnerable to Old World diseases: The European settlers and Conquistadors whose ancestors had been exposed to diseases such as cholera, small pox, plague and all manner of STDs imported to Europe from all over Eurasia and Africa for centuries had thus developed a strong resistance to these infectious diseases, which the isolated New World civilizations had not. Thus when Europeans arrived to the New World, all these diseases spread like wildfire through the civilizations in the Americas killing millions of natives, making it much more easier for he Europeans to not just colonize these lands but settle them and replace the natives as the most numerous people in the New World (contrast this with European colonization of Africa, where the native Africans were far less susceptible to European diseases and thus remained the majority population in these European colonies). For the New World to dominate the Old World they simply cant die by the millions after contact, thus there needs to be a POD where there is earlier contact and trade between Eurasia and the Americas because the Native American civilizations cannot rise to dominance if they are so vulnerable to diseases from the Old World.
 
I believe there is an interesting documentary about this called "Guns, Germs and Steel'.
Diamond's thesis is academically controversial, even if lots of laymen accept it at face value because he writes well. I personally think Eight Eurocentric Historians countered GGS quite well.
Anyhow I mostly agree with your first and third points, although I'd note that Iroquois agriculture was significantly more productive without plows than early New English settlers' agriculture (with plows), and according to a Dutch (IIRC) explorer rudimentary plows with a relative of the llama were being used on a Chilean island that had had minimal Spanish contact by that point.
I disagree with the axes hypothesis because the temperate zone is actually split up by huge mountains and deserts, and because I haven't yet been introduced to any definitive evidence.
 
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