[quote=@Pepperm1nts] [@vilageidiotx] Hold up just a goddamn second. In every single one of those examples, the loser in the strong invader. That is not what happened in PoW. In PoW, the loser was the strong defender, and the winner, somehow, was the weak invader. The defender in this case is also educated and at least well-armed, where the defender is under-armed, under-manned and with a population that is not as well educated. Not to mention the defender has the automatic advantage of being home, where most people will support the defense Literally the only thing the invader has going for it in this case is the made-up disadvantage of the defender's leadership being incompetent. But holy hell, how incompetent do you have to be to let this happen? And, like.. really, where the hell are the country's educated people? They're just sitting somewhere while all these weak states pick away at their nation? They're like "well our sultan was stupid so there's nothing we can do [i]now that he's FUCKING GONE.[/i]" In your examples, it was weak, highly uneducated guerrilla fighters successfully fighting off major powers. So why can't a, let's say 'decent', moderately educated nation that is at least partially industrialized, well-armed and at the very goddamn least more organized than just any guerrilla group having trouble stopping all these weak nations from picking it apart? Sorry dude, but I don't buy it. I am not saying we should fix anything though, I'm just saying I don't see it being 'believable'. [/quote] We gotta get you set up with some "Fall of the Roman Empire" literature. The fall of civilizations is a fascinating subject. I'm afraid you have the common disease of looking at the world through its national borders. It took me a while to figure out what you meant because you seem to ascribe all of the Ottoman Empire to a Turkish majority because the Turks drew their lines over the thing. I don't know the exact balance of Turks to non-Turks in these territories in Precipice because there were several layers of genocides and the later layer takes place after the Rp's history changes. But the Ottoman Empire was, much like the Austrian Empire, stressed to the breaking point by our RP. The fact it survived this long at all is sort of impressive. How this would effect populations is unclear, so we'll have to use RP based clues. So lets assume that Armenia has an Armenian majority. This means that the bureaucracy of Armenia is all that is Turkic. Historically, the Ottomans just went with being a multi-national Empire. This was in part because nationalism as we think of it was a 19th century invention so most of the ethnicities within their Empire didn't think about becoming independent until the Empire was already descendant. So if Armenia is mostly Armenians with a thin-layer of middle class Turks, and the Armenians got them some nationalism, an Armenian revolution would turn the Turks into occupiers overnight. As for the incompetence of the Ottoman Empire... this isn't that crazy either. Think the Habsburgs, 18th century France, or 13th century China, or 5th century Rome. Or, if you really want to get controversial, 21st century America. In a state that has existed as a fact for hundreds of years and has managed to grow relatively successful, an insular nobility will arise where competence becomes less important than connections. The states energy becomes less about preserving the state and more about the leaders of your nation trying to preserve their own wealth. Think about the story of how, after Alaric sacked Rome, the Emperor Honorius is told that Rome is slain He thinks it is his pet Chicken named Rome, and when the servant says that it is the city that fell and not the chicken, the Emperor replied "Thank god for that." Or the more well known "Let them eat cake" episode of the French Revolution. Or the existence of Libertarianism in the modern US. There is something about decedent Empires that breeds incompetence. This doesn't mean that now that Turkey is freed from the old Ottoman power structure there cannot be an Ataturk. That's just the problem with Precipice. To have an Ataturk, we kinda have to have a Turkish player. With a nobility insulated from society governing a multi-ethnic Empire where only the Turkish ethnicity really has any interest in participating, where economic recession is almost guaranteed and the military is most likely staffed by draftee's and the poor who have little hope of advancement, the Ottoman Empire is doomed. Which makes sense. The Ottoman Empire should have fell during the Great War. Then look at Armenia. Here you have a population where you can assume 33% or so are die-hard patriots, who are supported economically and logistically by several foreign states who know the Empire is going to fall and wants to make sure it falls in a way that benefits them, and who are the majority in all of the territories (or at least most of them) that they are claiming. They are just one of several similar rebelling states. The land they are fighting in is land they know, and it is difficult terrain. Armenia, after all, isn't an urban place. They have more than a chance. Realistically, the biggest problem for Armenia would be the fact that it's a tiny place with crap land. They aren't in a position to compete economically with the rest of the world. Maybe pushing over the corpse of a dead Empire was easy, but now Armenia is up against the world and surrounded by chaotic failed states things are going to be tougher.