What's the biggest plausible country-wank?

I.e., what's the largest ratio of timeline maximum size/power to historical maximum size/power? Are there any countries that historically never got that large, but could have taken over huge amounts of territory with some slight changes?

To start: The Bulgarian empires were only ever regional powers, but if a few things had gone differently for the Byzantines/Ottomans, I can see them dominating the Eastern Mediterranean.
 
Perhaps a Tibet wank of some kind. Imagine a Tibet without the Tang invasion of the Celestial Turks. Instead for the period between 600-900, Tibet has near constant success on all borders. We may imagine a Tibetan polity ruling the following:

Tibet
Kashmir
Kabul Shahis/Bactria
Tocharia
Zabulistan
Sogdia
Nepal
Bengal
Assam
Kwarezm
———-
Then to make it a true wank; see the Tibet devastate the Tang more than otl and succeed in a conquest of China and establish a rule over most of China in a light sense.
 
Ribagorza County

It was one of the first christian states during the Reconquista. WI they kept leadership and created an empire in western Mediterranean with colonies in the Americas?
 
The Vatican City State could have very easily ended up with a vastly larger (though still tiny for a sovereignty)
remnant of the Papal States. 100 or more times its current size is quite plausible I would say. If the Pope had negotiated early with the Italian unification movements...

For the USA at the other end of the scale, becoming a sort of US of N. America is probably greatest possible size.

I think this points out that generally the larger/more successful a nation in OTL the less room for improvement, while the micro states and minor powers have the potential to be vastly larger or more powerful with the right point of departure.
 
Someone made a silly challenge for Tuvalu to become the global hegemon. I can up with a scenario that met the challenge, involving a global plague that killed 99% of the Earth's population, but didn't get to Tuvalu, because the once every two week connexion to the outside world plane had mechanical problems the fortnite that the disease was incubating and never got off the ground once it emerged. Leaving them as the only organized government left in the world, and civilization is restarted as they slowly expand out into the largely empty world.

I misremembered.
Challenge: Tuvalu-wank
 
Perhaps a Tibet wank of some kind. Imagine a Tibet without the Tang invasion of the Celestial Turks. Instead for the period between 600-900, Tibet has near constant success on all borders. We may imagine a Tibetan polity ruling the following:

Tibet
Kashmir
Kabul Shahis/Bactria
Tocharia
Zabulistan
Sogdia
Nepal
Bengal
Assam
Kwarezm
———-
Then to make it a true wank; see the Tibet devastate the Tang more than otl and succeed in a conquest of China and establish a rule over most of China in a light sense.
If they don't conquer China proper but still make some inroads, i could also see them managing to acquire western Sichuan (Xikang) and Qinghai.
 
Perhaps a Tibet wank of some kind. Imagine a Tibet without the Tang invasion of the Celestial Turks. Instead for the period between 600-900, Tibet has near constant success on all borders. We may imagine a Tibetan polity ruling the following:

Tibet
Kashmir
Kabul Shahis/Bactria
Tocharia
Zabulistan
Sogdia
Nepal
Bengal
Assam
Kwarezm
———-
Then to make it a true wank; see the Tibet devastate the Tang more than otl and succeed in a conquest of China and establish a rule over most of China in a light sense.
On that point, a sustained conquest of/state of dominance over China would be the biggest possible wank for pretty much every East/South East Asian nation (except maybe the Ryukyu Kingdom, they'd need a good, long wank to just survive to the modern era) outside of China.
 
Some improbable cataclysm leading the British Empire and the United States to form a Civ 4-style Permanent Alliance in the late 1800s, leading the two to utterly dominate the world - as a hyperpower in a world with no superpowers, that's basically ruling the world.

Percentage-wise this isn't the largest improvement, but "all of it" should qualify.
 
On that point, a sustained conquest of/state of dominance over China would be the biggest possible wank for pretty much every East/South East Asian nation (except maybe the Ryukyu Kingdom, they'd need a good, long wank to just survive to the modern era) outside of China.

Not necessarily. I can imagine say, Tibetan conquest of Hindustan, Punjab, Bengal, Bactria, Sogdia, Tocharia, Assam; as perhaps an even larger prize or equally so as China. The population would be similar, yet Tibet would have perhaps a great control over many of the strategic resources that proliferate both east and west. Then, through Tocharia, Tibet with fair relations with China, could foster a renewed Silk Road, especially if Tibet can deal significant blows to the caliphate, that allows more free movement of overland trace movements between the West, Hindustan and China.
 
Not necessarily. I can imagine say, Tibetan conquest of Hindustan, Punjab, Bengal, Bactria, Sogdia, Tocharia, Assam; as perhaps an even larger prize or equally so as China. The population would be similar, yet Tibet would have perhaps a great control over many of the strategic resources that proliferate both east and west. Then, through Tocharia, Tibet with fair relations with China, could foster a renewed Silk Road, especially if Tibet can deal significant blows to the caliphate, that allows more free movement of overland trace movements between the West, Hindustan and China.
I mean, I was thinking of Tibet more as part of Central Asia at that point in history but you have a point there.

Conquest isn't the biggest wank there, though; the staying power to hold all that land would be, IMO. Like with the Mongols, they had everything for a while but it didn't mean much in the end when their favoured population was spread so thin and their homelands were underdeveloped so the loss of their conquests meant the end to Mongol hegemony for good.
 
Somewhat obvious ones but these would be relatively easy.
  • A non-Mongolic/non-Turkic tribe in the Mongolian Plateau that speaks a linguistic isolate ends up expanding the same way as Temüjin's Mongol Empire.
  • Rome is founded as the Etruscan-speaking city of Reme, and Etruscan Reme expands into the area of the Roman Empire.
  • A Turkish beylik that fell into obscurity during the rise of the Ottomans, pre-empts them and ends up conquering the Byzantines instead and rising to control the eastern Mediterranean.
  • Tver, Ryazan, Vladimir, or Yaroslavl rise like Muscovy.
  • Spain names the entire Spanish Empire "El Salvador" and Latin America later confederates into a multinational organization called El Salvador
  • The Luxembourg dynasty retains control over the Holy Roman Empire and replaces the Habsburgs
 
I mean, I was thinking of Tibet more as part of Central Asia at that point in history but you have a point there.

Conquest isn't the biggest wank there, though; the staying power to hold all that land would be, IMO. Like with the Mongols, they had everything for a while but it didn't mean much in the end when their favoured population was spread so thin and their homelands were underdeveloped so the loss of their conquests meant the end to Mongol hegemony for good.

Right, and aside from the Gupta, imperial domination in the Hindu subcontinent has been notoriously elusive (Maurya lasted approximately three rulers, British Raj only four or five and the Mughal were also a flash in the pan; compare this to the sustainability of the Assyrian empire in Iraq). A Tibetan hegemony though in the sense of the Kushan may be plausible. Imo, the Kushan model of ruling Hindustan through a network of satraps, is more efficient than to directly rule lands as did the Gupta or the Mughal. Perhaps Tibet develops the same. Regardless, the ideal of a Tibetan powerbase of such a massive extent, is an example of a nation that can be wanked to huge extremes, as their proximity to areas of large population and mercantile potential, when contrasted with its small population, make it exceptionally good for this challenge of doubling power and size when we remove micro-states and city states of the modern era.
 
Somewhat obvious ones but these would be relatively easy.
  • A non-Mongolic/non-Turkic tribe in the Mongolian Plateau that speaks a linguistic isolate ends up expanding the same way as Temüjin's Mongol Empire.
  • Rome is founded as the Etruscan-speaking city of Reme, and Etruscan Reme expands into the area of the Roman Empire.
  • A Turkish beylik that fell into obscurity during the rise of the Ottomans, pre-empts them and ends up conquering the Byzantines instead and rising to control the eastern Mediterranean.
  • Tver, Ryazan, Vladimir, or Yaroslavl rise like Muscovy.
  • Spain names the entire Spanish Empire "El Salvador" and Latin America later confederates into a multinational organization called El Salvador
  • The Luxembourg dynasty retains control over the Holy Roman Empire and replaces the Habsburgs

Mind if I add something to this list?
 

Vuu

Banned
Lichtenstein retains it's possessions. It's not much, but it's a honest wank.

Anyways, Russia if they literally do every single thing correctly. Would require a Sparta-tier society with lots of unprotected sex tho. But theoretically speaking whoever owns the area and populates it to the max has enough resources and manpower to just roflstomp the entire planet
 
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