Letter Bee

The Ghosts of Napoleon

<Snipped quote by Letter Bee>

If you can give a good reason for it to be either or, so it shall be. All the German states aren't going to be on the map because fuck that

@Dinh AaronMk

Hmm, I am also considering Prussia and Hannover.

The Ghosts of Napoleon

@Letter Bee

Technically, Bavaria is taken

@Dinh AaronMk

Technically, yes. Saxony was folded into Prussia in this timeline as well, right?

The Ghosts of Napoleon

<Snipped quote by Letter Bee>

Not even in the scope of the RP.

@Yam I Am
You're good to switch to the Decemberists chief

@Dinh AaronMk

Understood.

<Snipped quote by Letter Bee>

Just play the game by the rules, buddy. Make it make sense. Does your idea make sense? Does it play the game? No? Easy.

@TheEvanCat

Point taken. I'll either take Egypt after all or be the Papacy or maybe Bavaria.

Edit: It depends on what narrative I want to tell.

The Ghosts of Napoleon

<Snipped quote by Letter Bee>

It would have basically already lost pretty much everything in South America

@Dinh AaronMk

Early loss of the Philippines is in the realm of possibility, yes?

The Ghosts of Napoleon

Spain is losing its Colonial Empire to Revolution, correct?

The Ghosts of Napoleon

@Letter Bee

My points on Egypt still stand as they did before. Egypt would exist in a delicate balance of social relationships within the Middle East as was carried out by the Ottoman Empire. Similarly Muhammad Ali exists predominately by the will of the Ottomans that granted him permission to be the ruler of Egypt to begin with and ruling Egypt was a balance of maintaining that cordial feudal relationship with the Ottomans as much as it was having to fight them now and then to maintain independence at arm's reach, as with anyone in the greater Levant, Arabian peninsula, and Mesopotamia who would be as much subjects of the Ottomans as they were independent actors doing their own thing on pure vibe.

And besides the fractious conditions of this RP, the European calculus towards the Middle East and larger Ottoman Empire is always how best to use them as the foil to the Russian Empire. Neglecting the Ottoman Empire to allow them to break down too fast creates a void that the Russians could use to surge back from their punishment and bruising during the later alt-Napoleonic timeline, where even the Persians had the opportunity to nip at the Russian frontier and make gains on them after a little over a century of losing.

Internally in Egypt you have to remember that the departure of Napoleon from Egypt would have been still at best bitter, because he was not a popular figure in Egypt at all and anyone doing rapid western modernizations in Egypt could well be seen as just another Napoleon, even if they are Albanian Muslim and not French. But much of the Egyptian industrialization was fueled by European coal and would or could be very vulnerable to being leveraged that way. All those state centralizations and nationalism that Mohammad Ali did? Not only unpopular to his restless Egyptian subjects but also tasteless for European investors and parties who would source Egypt their most valuable coal to run their manufacturing depots.

A large part of this may just be an overall lack of regional players to drive competitive or antagonistic relationships towards Egypt. But skimming the app it's roughly the same as it ever was.

@Dinh AaronMk

It's a direct copy-paste as I was using it as an example; not a formal submission. I haven't made a decision on whether to re-apply yet; as you said, Egypt's position is more precarious than the app presents it as, even with a foreign patron.

But as it appears that I'm no longer restricted to the Balkans or Baltics, that widens my options, assuming I do decide to join and find a nation that fits the narrative(s) I want to tell.

The Ghosts of Napoleon

<Snipped quote by Letter Bee>

I don't even remember what you wanted

@Dinh AaronMk

Muhammad Ali's Egypt. You restricted me to the Balkans and Baltics because Pagemaster threatened to raze my coastal cities and I decided to escalate and throw a tantrum, which though bad, was also because no one sat me down and explained that Egypt was not doing it all in a vacuum but had a foreign patron (you did do that eventually, btw).

Edit: Revised to tone down Muhammad Ali's ambitions!

Vilayet of Egypt

Name: Vilayet of Egypt

Leader: Muhammad Ali of Egypt

History: Taking advantage of the power vacuum left in Egypt due to the departure of the Napoleonic Expedition which had taken it from the Ottoman Empire in the last years of the eighteenth century, Muhammad Ali Pasha, an Albanian commander who was part of the Ottoman forces sent to reoccupy Egypt, used the personal troops under his employ as well as his canny political skills to play the old elites and his fellow newcomers against each other, eventually rising to power as Egypt's new governor. As the Napoleonic Wars wound down, he dispatched his chief rivals, the Mamluks, through a bloody massacre that broke their power forever.

This allowed him to pass vital reforms without interference, such as the nationalization of land and the taxation of charitable endowments. Through a monopoly on trade and the improvement of Egypt's much-neglected agricultural system, he made enough revenue to not just buy Western weapons, but build factories that produced muskets and a shipyard capable of building 100-gun warships (this was IRL). He built dams, and technical schools, and allowed European Businesses to enter the country as long as they contributed part of their profits to his treasury. This allowed for rapid modernization and development, especially as he also sent students to Europe in order to make sure that he had specialists who knew how his weapons worked.

Eventually, he managed to provoke a dispute between himself and the Governor of Syria (which included everything from Antioch to Jerusalem at this time), which he used as a cassus belli for rebelling against the Ottoman Empire and invading it, bringing it down to its knees with his new modernized army, which advanced almost to Constantinople itself until the West sent an ultimatum: Back down or be broken. When he refused, he met his first serious setback, with his forces and navy being defeated and being beaten back to Cicilia, where he managed to save his conquests by making hasty diplomatic concessions, including pledging loyalty to the Sultan in exchange for continued rulership of Southeastern Anatolia and the Levant.

As he reconsolidated his position, the next challenge was a rebellion in Palestine, where high taxes and loss of power caused both peasants and local elites to revolt against his rule. Crushing this rebellion with immense brutality (a dark side to his rule), Muhammad Ali rebuilt his modern army and navy, careful to deal delicately with the Europeans so that they do not interfere. During that time, he sent expeditions south to make sure the region of Sudan was under his thumb, providing valuable gold to further finance his modernization programs while securing the best possible education for his sons and grandsons.

His ambitions were temporarily held in check by his realization that the European Powers would brook no threat to the status quo in the Middle East, and so Muhammad Ali focused on Sudan and the Hedjaz and their development. Sudan was both brutally pacified and searched for mineral resources, while the Hedjaz's cities, including Mecca and Medina, were richly endowed with gifts, and their ruling family, the Hashemites, were given guarantees of a privileged status in the VIlayet. Plans were also made to take advantage of Ethiopia's troubles to the south, as that country was still in civil war...

The Ghosts of Napoleon

@Willy Vereb

And even lacking the Austrian app, checking back at what I had written for the OP clarifies the situation in Italy:

<Snipped quote>

So on those grounds I would have to reject a surviving Napoleonic republic at Venice.

The point of divergence is also more or less the Treaty of Tilsit, where Napoleon decided to instead just go ahead and go gamer on the Prussians as a flex and turned around on the Russians when they protested to re-discipline them back into the Continental System, for a time

@Dinh AaronMk

Considering the need for players, does the restriction for me to restrict my guys to the Baltic or Balkans still apply?

Edit: Yes, you explained that my previous app could only have worked if I had a suitable foreign patron.

Edit 2: Pre-emptive 'Understood' and 'Point taken' for if the answer to my question is 'yes'.

Noble Arms - The ASEAN War [Moved to New Thread]

Discussion of this RP is still going on in Discord!

Innocence Lost - A Science Fantasy RP [v.03]

@Letter Bee@Landaus Five-One@FalloutJack@Starlance@jdh97@Smike:

After two years of IC action, sometimes with a few months in-between each IC post, I've decided to end Innocence Lost.