Alternate History Thread IV: The Sequel

Could you post a link anyway? :D

Also, could das possibly post some links to those Russian forums that he mentions periodically?
 
Yes, I forgot the link XD
I have edited the post.
 
First of all, the Latin Empire was an abomination and doesn't deserve to survive even if the PoD is before 1261. :p Secondly, there are of course major problems with the temporal paradox of something that has been dead for a century and a half "surviving". In any event, Timur's motivations (as I've been told before) really weren't geared towards smashing the Ottomans any more than he did anyway, because the war didn't start until Bayezid Yilderim ArrogancePants tried to get tribute from the wrong vassals.

However, if we drag the Turks into a significantly longer civil war, with Musa perhaps securing an alliance with Suleyman to stave off Mehmed I's invasion and creating a stalemate, then the Eastern Roman Empire does have somewhat more of a chance for skulduggery and playing the two sides against each other. Manuel II was certainly good at that. But frankly, it wouldn't have mattered in the long run, because after the reigns of Ioann V and Ioann VI Cantacuzene the Empire was screwed anyway.

Well I don't know if we can say what Tamerlane was up to for sure....Espeically in an alt time line..When his entire empire was based pretty much on how he was feeling when he woke up in the morning, I don't think it would take a huge change in history to see him continue to pursue the Ottomans and kick their butts a little more, atleast until they are beyond recovery. So lets say just for the heck of it, he does beat them badly........ Was there any chance of perhaps a Georgian, Vlach or even Slavic state taking the old Byzantine spot if the Turks were to be crushed? and the Latin Empire itself may have been dead, but I'm pretty sure some things like the Duchy of Athens still existed and a weak Ottoman Empire may have left a power vacum were they could have survived or even flourished...despite how much of an abomination they might have been.
 
Umm, guys, the scenario silver posted, regardless of the fact that it's silly, was made into a very successful NES by amenhotep7. I'm surprised nobody remembers it. Das certainly should...
 
Indeed. There was even a sequel to it as well. The New Empires I believe it was called. I distinctly remember a UU called the Nehru's Guards :lol:
 
Well I don't know if we can say what Tamerlane was up to for sure....Espeically in an alt time line..When his entire empire was based pretty much on how he was feeling when he woke up in the morning, I don't think it would take a huge change in history to see him continue to pursue the Ottomans and kick their butts a little more, atleast until they are beyond recovery.
The problem is that there was virtually nothing for him to pursue and crush. The Ottoman Interregnum was a time of a virtual power vacuum for quite awhile until Bayezid's remaining successors managed to collect enough forces to make an effort at rebuilding an empire. For eight years, there was no one in charge of a united Ottoman Empire, and the fact that nothing could significantly replace it means that there was no one capable of seizing on that power vacuum. The Duchy of Athens (actually left behind by Roger de Flor's Catalans, not the abominable Latin Empire) did still exist, but even the Byzantines - who were not able to gain significantly from the Ottoman defeat at Ankara either - were able to beat up on it in the years after the Interregnum. (That's the whole reason Manuel was able to start the Hexamilion, because he seized the Isthmus from the defunct Duchy.)
bombshoo said:
So lets say just for the heck of it, he does beat them badly........ Was there any chance of perhaps a Georgian, Vlach or even Slavic state taking the old Byzantine spot if the Turks were to be crushed? and the Latin Empire itself may have been dead, but I'm pretty sure some things like the Duchy of Athens still existed and a weak Ottoman Empire may have left a power vacum were they could have survived or even flourished...despite how much of an abomination they might have been.
I'm sure that states could very easily gain some extra land on the edges, but the problem is that the Ottomans in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are roughly comparable to the French in the seventeenth - they have so much potential, and this is their Golden Age, so they are just about indestructible (like cockroaches). I'm sure it's possible to gift some state or other with a brilliant military leader at just the right time to entirely wipe the menace of the Turks off the map, but the fact is that it wouldn't be realistic. Heck, das even handed them a huge military defeat on land and sea in Italy and in northern Serbia in the 1480s in his Agincourt TL, which led to DisNES II. That didn't even stop them, because the Turks were even stronger later on and went on to achieve naval hegemony in the Indian Ocean and Eastern Med, along with serious land power and large chunks of Persia in addition to their OTL position.

If you want to get rid of the Turks entirely - God knows I have - there are plenty of other places to do it. Manzikert is an obvious choice (get rid of Andronikos Doukas), and my very first TL began with Basil II having a viable heir, thus eliminating the decline that led to Zoe and her husbands and the deplorable situation of the Empire in 1071 in the first place. Theoretically, if one were to not allow the Turks into Europe at all (hence my mentioning of the Cantacuzenus and his little civil war), then one could hold the Straits against them, because the Turks didn't really develop a navy until the days of Mehmed II. Taking away Myriokephalon probably wouldn't do anything, because it wasn't the watershed battle that it might seem at first (the Romans went on campaign again the next year and actually won back a few fortresses), but taking away Manuel's obsession with the West and with containing William of Sicily might, because then he might concentrate on the Rum Sultanate more and wipe it out entirely instead of letting it simmer and rebuild for a decade. Then, there are possibilities with not letting the Turks out of the Heartland at all, with a possible Ghaznavid survival or at least establishment of a viable Persian empire during the 11th century that could keep the Seljuks out for a significant amount of time.

Like I said, if it's no Turks you want you can do it, but it's probably too late at that juncture to try much of anything. (I've actually tried a variant on that, with the Crusade at Nicopolis succeeding and Timur attacking to wipe out the last remnants of the Turks, but it was sort of shot down. Also, you could see Strategos' most recent TL.)
 
das disappareance really worry me...each time I get a message for a new post in a tread, I think is AFSNES update...this is killing me.
 
The problem is that there was virtually nothing for him to pursue and crush. The Ottoman Interregnum was a time of a virtual power vacuum for quite awhile until Bayezid's remaining successors managed to collect enough forces to make an effort at rebuilding an empire. For eight years, there was no one in charge of a united Ottoman Empire, and the fact that nothing could significantly replace it means that there was no one capable of seizing on that power vacuum. The Duchy of Athens (actually left behind by Roger de Flor's Catalans, not the abominable Latin Empire) did still exist, but even the Byzantines - who were not able to gain significantly from the Ottoman defeat at Ankara either - were able to beat up on it in the years after the Interregnum. (That's the whole reason Manuel was able to start the Hexamilion, because he seized the Isthmus from the defunct Duchy.)

I'm sure that states could very easily gain some extra land on the edges, but the problem is that the Ottomans in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are roughly comparable to the French in the seventeenth - they have so much potential, and this is their Golden Age, so they are just about indestructible (like cockroaches). I'm sure it's possible to gift some state or other with a brilliant military leader at just the right time to entirely wipe the menace of the Turks off the map, but the fact is that it wouldn't be realistic. Heck, das even handed them a huge military defeat on land and sea in Italy and in northern Serbia in the 1480s in his Agincourt TL, which led to DisNES II. That didn't even stop them, because the Turks were even stronger later on and went on to achieve naval hegemony in the Indian Ocean and Eastern Med, along with serious land power and large chunks of Persia in addition to their OTL position.

If you want to get rid of the Turks entirely - God knows I have - there are plenty of other places to do it. Manzikert is an obvious choice (get rid of Andronikos Doukas), and my very first TL began with Basil II having a viable heir, thus eliminating the decline that led to Zoe and her husbands and the deplorable situation of the Empire in 1071 in the first place. Theoretically, if one were to not allow the Turks into Europe at all (hence my mentioning of the Cantacuzenus and his little civil war), then one could hold the Straits against them, because the Turks didn't really develop a navy until the days of Mehmed II. Taking away Myriokephalon probably wouldn't do anything, because it wasn't the watershed battle that it might seem at first (the Romans went on campaign again the next year and actually won back a few fortresses), but taking away Manuel's obsession with the West and with containing William of Sicily might, because then he might concentrate on the Rum Sultanate more and wipe it out entirely instead of letting it simmer and rebuild for a decade. Then, there are possibilities with not letting the Turks out of the Heartland at all, with a possible Ghaznavid survival or at least establishment of a viable Persian empire during the 11th century that could keep the Seljuks out for a significant amount of time.

Like I said, if it's no Turks you want you can do it, but it's probably too late at that juncture to try much of anything. (I've actually tried a variant on that, with the Crusade at Nicopolis succeeding and Timur attacking to wipe out the last remnants of the Turks, but it was sort of shot down. Also, you could see Strategos' most recent TL.)

Well your scenario is good, but it was not only no Turks I wanted, but a stronger and more stable Timurid Empire. I'd like to see the one you said was shot down or Stratego's
 
Well your scenario is good, but it was not only no Turks I wanted, but a stronger and more stable Timurid Empire. I'd like to see the one you said was shot down or Stratego's
Mine was more of a single post idea, and Strategos' dealt much more with Europe, concentrating a good deal on European politics and especially Italian affairs as the Eastern Romans relocated to Rome.

The problem with the Timurids surviving is their own internal politics. You can probably fix that temporarily by not having Pir Muhammad murdered, but frankly a nation that was built on sheer destruction wouldn't have survived long anyway. Take the Nazis, for example, or look at what happened to the Seljuk Turks!...Their descendants rule a nation that has a chance (although waning) of getting into the EU and which is a staunch US ally. Never mind. This, by the way, was a display of sarcasm.
 
I think the Seljuk Turks and Nazi Germany are bad examples. First because the Seljuk Turks weren't all that destructive and might have held on to a stable Persain Empire if it weren't for the Mongols who were much better at destruction. And the Germans would have been fine it Hitler wasn't an idiot.
 
I think the Seljuk Turks and Nazi Germany are bad examples.
They were also extremely sarcastic examples. :p Also, I was referring to Anatolia with the Seljuks.
 
I don't know if thats the same cause if your linking them on Ethnicity then Mamluke Egypt and the Timurid Empire would all be part of the Seljuk Turkish Legacy.
 
Well the Timurids did survive for quite awhile as the Mughals in a way...
 
I don't know if thats the same cause if your linking them on Ethnicity then Mamluke Egypt and the Timurid Empire would all be part of the Seljuk Turkish Legacy.
Huh? I was referring to the fact that during the 1070s and 1080s, the Seljuk Turks slaughtered much of the Greek Anatolian population as a calculated act of terror on the one hand and out of pure bloody-mindedness on the other.
 
That's not very nice.

I never said it wouldn't be a fun or worthwhile NES, its just one of those timelines like TWTUD or that NukeNES where the departure from historical plausibility is so great that you're just wasting time thinking about how things got from A to B, so you just sit back, take B as is, and play.
 
Huh? I was referring to the fact that during the 1070s and 1080s, the Seljuk Turks slaughtered much of the Greek Anatolian population as a calculated act of terror on the one hand and out of pure bloody-mindedness on the other.

I thought you were talking about the Seljuk turk vassal state of Rum that occured after that event as tribes of Turks settled in the area after the defeat of the Byzantine army. Because the tribes men weren't really part of the Seljuk Turk state just turks who wanted to live independently in Anatolia.
 
I never said it wouldn't be a fun or worthwhile NES, its just one of those timelines like TWTUD or that NukeNES where the departure from historical plausibility is so great that you're just wasting time thinking about how things got from A to B, so you just sit back, take B as is, and play.

The nuke nes is a take off of victoria in which you can make history depart as far as you want from reality. I mainly make Germany bigger stronger and faster then in real life and don't build a navy or colonize. Though most games this just means fighting WWI every five years as I beat up on Austria, Russia, and France. Not allied together just France always wants Alsac back and Russia gets pissed at you for being too big and I have a tendency to want to unify all the German people which means conquering Austria. But also cool events will happen too. Like in one game Russia satelited the Ottoman Empire and all the Balkan States but I still took poland and all the Baltic states from him.
 
But also cool events will happen too. Like in one game Russia satellited the Ottoman Empire and all the Balkan States but I still took Poland and all the Baltic states from him.
Heh, sounds sort of like what happened in the Eurasian War TL except not really at all. Actually, it sounds almost nothing like that. Never mind.

I am working on yet another Guess-the-PoD map; hopefully this one will be significantly more popular and much more difficult than the previous ones. 'Tis from the late seventeenth century this time.
 
Back
Top Bottom