The New World Scenario - 2005

[el presidentse]

This thread is for the New World Scenario, something I'm playing around with (using my old Vespucci stuff).

The premise: For Whatever Reason(TM), the European powers decide not to sail east. As a result, the usual suspects stagnate, the unusual suspects prosper, and things get very dicey indeed in Africa and Southeast Asia. After some indeterminate time of fun and games, there is discovered to be a couple of new continents lying around - which are named after their discoverer, Alexander Humboldt, but that's not important.

As of 1836, the Amerind nations have barely recovered from the introduction of European diseases; some of them are reaching out feelers to 'civilization', and some steeling themselves for war...

[el presidentse]

I was playing around with a blank map a bit using the GIMP and, on a whim, I decided to do China.

China.
(Ignore the red and uncolonized areas.)

From darkest to lightest: Tibet, Sinkiang, Lesser China, Manchu China, Han China. (Names preliminary, except - obviously - for Tibet.)

Lesser China is probably going to start with provinces lost to Old World powers - it represents not so much a single government (although it could!) as an area where neither the Shanghai nor the Beijing governments exerts enough control to do more than cancel each other out. As the game goes on, the OW powers are going to systematically carve it up, with whatever is left being more or less a prize for whichever northern government proves itself dominant.

Manchu China is the area ruled by the Manchurians. Its advantage is size; it will be easier to civilize than China in Vanilla/VIP, but faces more than one enemy to the north. (Complicated story, that - but even I haven't fully decided what happens to far Siberia yet.)

Han China is smaller but more flexible than the Manchurian state. It doesn't have the disadvantage of being a hulking brute, and the OW powers will, for the most part, leave it well enough alone. It's the closest to civilizing.

Borders are not final, nor are concepts or anything. This is just a mock-up. Anyone care to offer suggestions/comments? I'm not an expert on Chinese history and don't know how plausible this is - in general, it represents first European intervention within the early 18th century, in which the Manchurian government was not in good shape.

[el presidentse]

And here's a basic concept of the Old World:



Things to note:

1) All greenish countries are Ottoman vassals, except for Ireland and Rome.

2) Venice is the blobbish thing in the north of Italy.

3) Courland's colonial efforts in Siberia defaulted to Poland after the latter came under Swedish rule.

4) France is a dominant power on the Continent, but will likely suffer heavily due to Basque-Catalan and Dutch-Belgian nationalism. It also enjoys a weak colonial position, but this is its own doing (in this timeline, they have been chummy with the Venetians and Iberians to counter the German nations, and later Russia).

5) The German countries are Prussia, Saxony, Hessia, and Bavaria. (These may represent alliance systems rather than polities.)

6) Japan has already been opened, and the Venetians and Iberians both have treaty ports. The same may end up applying to China (I haven't decided on who would get what yet, though).

7) Oman is a major imperial power in the Indian Ocean, but is uncivilized.

8) The Danes recently split off from a greater Scandinavian union; the Danish and Swedish colonies were once unified and the ability to unify them again will likely exist somehow.

9) The Suez canal will likely be open at the start of the game. (An Ottoman ruler decided to create one, leading to Ottoman - and, to a lesser degree, Omani and Venetian - economic and political power far greater than historically true.)

8) The red areas of India represent Rump Mughalstan and its vassals. Other red nations are Bohemia and England.

9) I may remove the White Sea port provinces from Russia and give them to a satellite nation in order to represent their general uselessness as significant ports of call - and in order to force the Russians to expand to the sea by military means.

10) Iberia is a central union, but will almost definitely have to face a rebellion within Portugal and the colonies.

11) Brazil may have a nation in it when I get around to messing with the New World; I am most likely to give Prussia (Humboldt is the discoverer of America in this timeline) and the British nations (traditionally snubbed from the race to colonial empire - and now with a chance to reverse that) the first crack at New World settlement, represented by useful trading posts or claimed colonies.

12) The Islamic powers are not to be counted out in the colonization of the Americas either - most especially the Ottoman Empire, which has already aggrandized within the Islamic cultural community about as much as is practical and enjoys the theoretical ability to proselytize in the Amerind nations.

13) Oh, and Ethiopia is what it is because the Omanis have gone to great lengths to prop it up to prevent the Ottomans from cutting off their independent power in east Africa.

Comments? Suggestions? Any discussion would be welcome.

[Xanthippus]

This looks very promising and enjoyable! I'll be looking forward to playing it!

[Lord Boreal]

Looks like it could be a great mod. Are you basing it on a alternate history novel like Harry Turtledove's or is it purely your own imagination?

[Xanthippus]

I think it would be interesting to play an Amerind nation that is free and on the path to modernisation. Perhaps a few, so there can be some internicine fighting and politics? I think that would be fun.

[Lord Boreal]

Hmm yes. If Europeans had discovered the Americas a few centuries later than IRL, perhaps they would have more advanced tech? Not muskets or anything as I doubt they would have invented gunpowder, being clingy to nature and stuff. But maybe Iron.

[el presidentse]

Aha, I've been semi-active lately. Big things are a'comin'! Not least of which being a little update to the NWC.

Yes, there will be Amerind groups. (I've actually got a preliminary map sorted out, but it's on a crippled computer at the moment.) They'll be relatively weak except for 1 or 2 big ones, but there are three 'unifications' achievable by technology, culture, and/or war, and one civ should be interesting for two reasons: piracy events making it a natural enemy of everyone to set foot on land draining into the Gulf of Mexico, and the USA tag leading to increased immigration.

And this is an original timeline - to my knowledge, no invoking of Turtledove etc.

[hoodini]

This looks excellent. Can't wait to try it. Keep it on, lad!

[Xanthippus]

Definitely, don't abandon this, please! If you need some help I might be inclined to lend a hand.

[fudd_bopo]

Looks really interresting indeed!

[sansa]

I think that all the Aragonese crown should be french. Corsica and Sardinia should be french too, but only if now they are spanish (I can't see well their colour).

[Lord Boreal]

Oooh some interesting things could be added here if it is an original timeline...turks in america?

[el presidentse]

I'm a very lazy man.

However, winter break is coming up, and I can't spend the whole thing on my novel, so - expect at least some perfunctory planning work to get done on this.

[sean john]

how can i get this mod?

[T'ung Dynasty]

by the way wat is this new world scenario 2005,is it about current nations???

[el presidentse]

Once more, I sputter to life and return to my darling, the New World Scenario.

Work on my AAR will teach me what's different between Victoria and Ricktoria, but I don't know if I'll be able to throw together a good scenario on this one alone. I'll let you know when I've got each of the three next steps in the process ready:

(1) Amerind premise map
(2) In-game political map
(3) Demographic, economic, & political trends outline

From that a playable (if spartan) scenario should be available, and the interesting bits may be filled in readily by anyone interested.

In case anyone is confused: the basic premise here is African/Asian-style imperialization of the Americas (as opposed to colonization, which has happened to a minor degree in Africa and whose driving energy has gone into stirring up craziness in the Old World). The balance of power being completely shifted in the Old World is no accident; generally the conventional whipping-boys have been made into its bullies and vice-versa. (With the obvious exception of China, which, if anything, can now be bullied even more readily.)

I want to have a respectable NWS done by 2007; at the very least, a playable one.