#after frisia i want to take northern france

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

started a new ck3 campaign last night. pagan saxons. specifically started as the "lord" of dithmarschen (roleplaying as a kind of peasant republic). prevented the saxon wars. my mid-term goal is to liberate (conquer) frisia from the franks (want to kinda roleplay creating a hanseatic league analog), but they are still the dominant empire and dwarf us so it will have to wait. in the meantime i am building up my strength by expand eastward, ethnically cleansing the slavs along the way.

somehow i got tangled up in some scandinavian wars and ended up conquering a good chunk of sweden. so i guess i've decided to add a new goal of conquering all of scandinavia. imagine that. a saxon scandinavia. it seems kind of natural though since they (the norse) are the only other germanic pagans on the map right now. may as well unite as a single germanic pagan empire, right?

and on top of that i figured i may as well invade england too. recreate some kind of north sea empire but including saxony too. purify the island of christianity and reunite with our anglo-saxon kin.

[tsvitok]

I spent a ridiculous amount of time working these out. I may need to seek medication to curb this insanity.

Anyway.

see below if you want walls of text and insanity.

both maps are laid over a map of current borders so you have a reference and it isn’t just a white blob.

No gunpowder Europe. As you will notice, most of everyone we generally see today is around with some border changes.

In this reality, Prussia was unable to unify Germany and thus the southern leagues supported by Austria created a unified Germany. Superior cavalry otherwise carved out this world, Spain never took off in Europe and was easily outclassed by the French and Austrians. France was successful in their push into Italy during the renaissance and held Savoy from there on out - it was Venice, that did not have to compete with the Ottoman Empire - which slowed and stalled warring against the southern Europeans - and would resist Austrian aggression by unifying Italy through unholy alliances. Portugal never became much of anything, the Netherlands - despite lacking gunpowder, became quite strong purely off of their ability to trade. Likewise, England grew strong off of trade, but without cannons it was hard for small navies to match the larger navies of France, Spain and later on Austria and Poland.

In the Middle East, you see a lack of European imperialism for two reasons - without weaponry such as rifles and cannons, it became hard for the European powers to challenge established states that ruled from horseback. The one exception is Russia, where their reliance on Cossacks and their large population allowed them to expand east where they eventually slowed against a more powerful series of Chinese states. Most interestingly is the Sahel States such as Mali and Songhai and their successors are still around and strong - the slave trade there which was increasingly worsened by Moroccan invasion (successful due to gunpowder weaponry) and the import of firearms, didn’t become a tribal thing but remained purely about horses. (feel free to ask me to explain that in depth if you like).

Moving on.

No horse Europe This is where it gets fucking insane, if you don’t know ancient/early medieval history you’ll probably be immediately lost so let me hash it out a bit more.

So, the first thing you may notice is that it is a clusterfuck. You’re right.

I had two basic assumptions, one that because there is no horses the nobility is instead a professional class of infantry soldiers - akin to the huskarls. And two, that a lot of the more nomadic peoples that were warlike would have adapted to this change.

This is why you will see that the Scythians, Hungarians, Turks and Cimmerians are still around and are quite large.

Hungary is an interesting case as they are originally very closely linked to the Finns (Finno-Uygric). The Finns were also good horsemen, but given they’re essentially an isolated group from the region and there is no other analogue it is not strange to imagine they would adopt. In a similar vein, the Sami are related to both groups, and consisted on fur-hunting, herding, etc and so it was fairly natural to see them migrating from the northern Fennoscandinavian region and into the essentially unoccupied region of what is Russia where they is plentiful game and furs. Particularly given the Swedish and Norwegian expansions that would have likely displaced them.

The Vikings and the Viking Era was largely unchanged with one important distinction - the Great Heathen Army that invaded England was likely successful - for two reasons, one the Anglo-saxon armies were established around a fast and effective conscription system called the fyrds (or hirds, I forget which) which likely relied on horses to carry messages, and two, the Anglo-saxons themselves used cavalry in their warfare. Vikings did as well, but their mobility came from ships and raiding, and would have more easily adopted to this horseless world.

The Migration Period that marked the end of the Roman Empire was fairly similar, though it was Carthage that came to power in this reality, the thing that spurred on the Migrations was poor weather, and the tribes that had been pushed westward by horse-tribes would likely have also been pushed westward by the tribes of this world. Slavs and Scythians have a fierce reputation after all - with both being claimed to be cannibals.

Both Poland and Lithuania, despite historically being founded on cavalry, emerged. However not at all how we know them - they are more a multi-ethnic blend of Slavic and German/Scandinavian.

Further west, Frisia remained undislodged and unified the local region without the need to battle Franks. France is completely different, it is Gallica, the land of the Gauls. Without the extensive conquest and romanisation that Gaul suffered under the romans, they retained their identity and their culture/religion/etc. Gaul absorbed the migration as they settled in their land, and because of this only really Italy and the Balkans were impacted. Both by Goths. The HRE of our world essentially became the constant feuding of the Goths. Without a roman legacy and with the carthaginisation of Italy, which had little emphasis on actual carthaginian identity (the Carthaginians didn’t assimilate cultures, they essentially integrated them as allied states) the Goths never really try to stylise themselves as Romans and instead remain Germans.

Without horses, there was no Arab conquests, Egypt experienced a revival with Phoenician trappings. The Turks that would invade and conquer Anatolia in our reality were absorbed by Persia as happened in our reality, but they did not expand much further as the middle east fractured into ancient states trying to rebirth until an eventual sort of split between the largely Arab/Iranian Mashriq and the Assyrians.

Beyond Europe, I can see the Mexican states such as the Aztecs, Mixtecs, etc, continuing on and growing more powerful but never really unifying due to their religion. the Mayans would probably end up effective client states. The Inca would likely come to be the kickstarter of a bronze/iron age style development like the Romans did for Europe. North America it’s likely that the Great Lakes would be the sight of the first big empire there. I would imagine that if anyone gets there it would probably not be in the same vein as the Spanish - as the Carthaginian legacy would be trade and not outright conquest like the Romans.

It’s also likely that none of the abrahamic religions take off, I see a monotheistic version of norse or celtic as much more likely. Punic would be in there but given the fact that the celts and the norse would be the real cultural drivers in europe, I doubt it.

/shrug