Pre-BombNES IV: A New Hope

Theocratic State of Deseret/germanicus12
His role in the African Incident might seem to make any award I give him suspect, but from the beginning germanicus12’s Deseret had great tactics if not great strategy. In the Great North American War, he led his nation to defeat invasions from the American Federation, Venezuela, and ASEAN, and by the end of the game, he had the Most Efficient Navy on the face of the planet. Deseret also gets the Nation that Turned the Most Away from Its Roots award. Salt Lake could have easily been the seat of an authoritarian missionary empire, but germanicus12 toned down the religious aspect of Deseret and ran it like the closest thing this game had to a United States. As part of that, Deseret also gets the Most Influential North American Nation award, though it was a close run thing with Quebec.

Aragon (The Kingdom of Aragon): The new Kingdom of Aragon owes its origins to the Spanish Revolution of 1803, and the subsequent French occupation of Northern Iberia to prevent the rebellion from spreading into Southern France. Unlike Castile, where the peasants and military successfully overthrew their monarch, Aragon was subject to several decades of French occupation with a pretender to the former Spanish monarchy sitting on the throne. Following this, a guerilla war against both the French occupation and the Aragonese monarchy lasted for several decades, before finally being crushed in the 1880s, though some dissenting elements do remain underground. Aragon currently maintains strong ties with France, and despite having considerably less freedom of political action compared to its neighbor, Castile, its economy is significantly more advanced due to its ties with industrialized Europe.

Ayyubids (The Ayyubid Caliphate): The Roman victory against the Demir Qoyunlu in the 1610s saw the Turkic Empire forced to cede nearly the entirety of its Mesopotamian provinces to Constantinople. Despite this, the Roman government would soon find that much like under Trajan, holding these new territories would be a logistical nightmare.

Indeed, almost as soon as Turkic forces withdrew and the Roman forces entered the region, did the predominantly Arab and Kurdish population of the area rise up in rebellion. The revolt was soon coopted by the descendents of the once great Ayyubids, who using their position as governors of Damascus, were able to raise a moderately large band of raiders and defeat Roman armies (exhausted from eight years of warfare with the Demir Qoyunlu) at the battles of Mosul and Van.

With these victories, the Ayyubid’s shoddy militia soon transformed into a large professional force, backed by money and advisors from the Demir Qoyunlu and other Asian Sultanates. By 1631, the Romans had been forced out of the Euphrates River Valley and soon found themselves defending Anatolia itself. In 1638, a crisis on the Hungarian border forced the Romans to shift the vast majority of their forces from Asia to the Balkans, effectively putting an end to the war, though a formal peace was not declared for another forty years.

In 1648, the new Ayyubid Sultanate set its eyes on the Arabia n Peninsula, seeking to capture the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina. The campaign was a resounding success, as the local Arab chieftains were not much of a match for the battle hardened forces of Ayyubids. With Mecca and Medina secured, the Ayyubid Sultan finally felt comfortable declaring himself the new Caliph, but to fully secure his new title, he set his sights on capturing the Levant from the Latin dominated province of Jerusalem. However, unlike the Ayyubid’s previous campaigns, which were primarily based on quick conquests, the Caliphate found itself at a loss trying to crack the super fortresses of the Levant and a truce was drawn shortly later, though this would be far from the last of its wars with the Latins.

The following two centuries would prove that the new empire was not nearly as good at governing as it was as conquering, and a string of secession crises and political conflict (often a result of Turkic and Roman meddling) would turn the Caliphate into a civil and economic mess. The Civil War of 1882-1886 saw the overthrow of the mainstream Ayyubid dynasty based in Damascus in favor of a cadet branch based out of Baghdad. It was also during this war that the Kingdom of the Outremer was able to conquer and occupy the cities of Homs and Aleppo on their border.

Currently, the Ayyubid Caliphate is an economic and technological backwater, while the military, once the political backbone of the empire, has not advanced much beyond the tactics and weapons that it used to conquer its territory almost three centuries ago. It survives mainly in the fact that its territory is not worth the amount it would cost to occupy it, and by playing its three regional rivals (the Romans, Demir Qoyunlu and Outremere) off against one another. More recently it has looked to the British and Burgundians to help it modernize its forces, but very little in the way of progress has yet to come out of this.

Castile (The Kingdom of Castile): When the Roman Empire invaded Italy with the intent of reuniting the Eastern and Western churches, Spain was one of the first nations to join France in their anti-Roman alliance. A poor performance in the conflict’s opening battles resulted in the Spanish government delegating the command of most of their military to French generals and while this did lead to a string of victories, Spanish forces were undeniably facing much higher casualties than their French allies.

Problems were only compounded when British entry into the war on the side of Rome resulted in the attack and seizure of several Spanish colonies. Spain’s inability to defend its colonies soon led to revolts in Mexico and South America and a Moroccan raid on Valencia, instigated at the behest of Rome, eventually put the Catalans into revolt as well. With a civil war brewing at home, and the war straining its economy, Spain quickly pulled most of its troops from the main theater in the Mediterranean with the intent to use them to quell the rebellion at home.

The returning soldiers, disgruntled by their treatment in the war, and now expected to fight against their own countrymen soon initiated a revolt of their own, marching on Madrid and ousting the monarchy and forcing them into exile in Mexico. This was shortly followed by the formation of a new government in Burgos, sympathetic to the plight of the soldiers and peasants alike. Alarmed by the events in Iberia, France scrambled to organize an army to overthrow the military government created in Burgos, but it was only able to occupy Aragon and Navarre before events in Italy forced them to halt their advances.

The next decade saw a guerrilla war waged against the French in northern Iberia, while the new government in Burgos struggled to maintain law and order in Castile. By the time the Theodosian Wars came to a close, a new kingdom of Castile had been declared, with a lesser Spanish noble placed on the throne as a figurehead for a cadre of generals.

Currently, Castile is one of Europe's more troubled countries, as the military sucks up most of the country’s income in order to fend off any possible invasion. Despite this, its relatively effective military force is enough to bring alarm to its neighbors to the north and west. Castile's largest issue is that if it wishes to prosper, it will almost surely be forced to cut down on its military expenses, but at the same time, this will inevitably force the small country to also make political concessions its neighbors. All that can be said for sure is that if Spain is to reunite under Castilian leadership, it will almost certainly take a very shrewd leader.