Is it possible to have a low-tech empire (17th century europe) which has the size of picture...

Is it possible to have a low-tech empire (17th century europe) which has the size of picture? Is supposed to be very decentralized like the HRE.

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord-du-Québec
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

Only if you are George R.R. Martin.
But seriously, its possible. Look to China or the Mogolian Golden Age, but decentralization is unlikely. Vast territory may have decentralized power locally, but always relied on a strong central core area of authority.

That's not much bigger than the Spanish Empire would have been during the same period, I'm going to say yes.

Ottomans had pretty large empire in this period. As long as it have competent administrative caste it's fine

Look at Russia.

With good use of Viceroys, maybe. One thing to keep in mind is the sense of national identity. If the people in states think of themselves as "Colonists" or "Statemen" or members of the individual state first, instead of the home country, there will be trouble.

Cultural unity is just as important as military unity.

Of course it's possible. There are an uncountable number of scenarios where it's possible if you assume certain factors are true beforehand. Since you're making it up you can assert that these factors are true and say that it's possible on your own. You could even say that the entire world is united under a single empire if you wanted to.

First of all, all things are possible through God, so jot that down.
Second, maybe look some Native American culture maps to figure out a better shape for your empire.
In Mesoamerica, there are full-on city states, but this didn't happen much up north.

What would be some ways to boost patriotism and a sense of national identity for colonists (besides going to war with another state)

If you can come up with some decent handwaves you can make anything believable, which is what I usually go for GM'ing. Someone can poke a hole in anything, just come up with reasons to make it believable and then make it fun.

But historically? It works I suppose. Spanish Empire would be about that size, along with Russia. If you wanted to look at earlier examples Alexander the Great, Rome, and the Mongols would be good inspirations.

Literature.

Making sure that the colony has a strong political voice, or at least make sure they believe they have one.

Frequent trips by high ranking politicians and royals, if they can manage it.

Religion is also huge.

The biggest problems empires faced back then was the fucking ocean. It's hard to maintain culture when the distance is so huge. The weather, the environment, ect. all lead to changes in culture.

Controlled movement of people. Draw troops from different areas, station them in different areas to maintain some sense of homogeneity, since you're looking at the HRE that may be less of an option unless each region has it's local forces and maybe each vassal sends say a defined number of troops that consolidate into a Royal Army.
Control and promotion of trade would be good since people are actually having to go from Place to place to trade, point is it'll be easier to maintain that cultural unity with more people moving inter-provincially because then they're more likely have a stake in their neighbours' interests and speak the same language.

Eyeballing it, you're looking at a territory of about 75000 pixels (including the water). In a fantasy universe with suitably miniature creatures that could be an empire, but they'd better watch out for giga-sized threats like house flies.

This is a good idea. Its a little harder for a local lord to rebel and fight when their army is 75% from the "enemy" lands. Encourage free movement and migration in the entire empire and the people will do it themselves

underrated.

Yes. It's called "the United States of America".

First of all, the United States wasn't a thing until the end of the 18th century. Second of all, it didn't reach the size drawn out in the OP until midway through the 19th. So there's that.

On the other hand, China, Russia, and the Ottomans all had equivalent territorial areas through the 17th century, so it's definitely possible.

ehhh,..probably.

>Is it possible to have a low-tech empire (17th century europe) which has the size of picture?
Yes, but it needs major rivers for the internal transport to hold all this land together. Or split these holdings overseas but this will change dynamic of the empire entirely.
>Is it possible to have a low-tech empire (17th century europe) which has the size of picture?
As long as sits on its own continent far away from enemies it can go full Japan. Otherwise it will be conquered or splintered.

>First of all, the United States wasn't a thing until the end of the 18th century. Second of all, it didn't reach the size drawn out in the OP until midway through the 19th
That's just because of when it was settled. If it had been settled earlier, it would have gotten to that size earlier, too.

I always though China was way bigger then the us

'You must be this big to become a world superpower'

Depends on a great many things.

Had it been there it could also been annexed by another colonial nation or conquered by some tribes. Or fractured.

What's Russia, China, the Spanish, British, French, Dutch the Empires an all of that?

...

These already existed in that period, as some already pointed out.
China, The Ottoman Empire, Spanish Empire, Tsardom of Russia....
New France had a large part of the land on the map.

patriotism and national identity was a very 18th, 19th century idea, don't think too much about it

It never fails to amaze me how many people post here that know jack shit about history. As other people have pointed out, the Mongols did it. Great Britain did it with India. Rome and Alexander the Great both managed something nearly the same size.

So, yes. It's possible.

How would America look today if French held on their American territories?

...

That map can't be right the Russians didn't have Outer Manchuria until 1858

...

Nah, this is a result of globalist naval empire dominating the world and fucking up local governments on purpose

I think a lot of people are missing something important about the OP, he specifically asked if a HRE style decentralised empire could work at that size with that level of technology.

The simple answer is no, at that size the amount of political instability and infighting from so many microstates, city states and other countries that are barely larger then that which are all under a banner of a single empire and not much more unified then that could not function. You would need a proper empire's centralisation, something the HRE did not have. It was about as big as its system could allow for, to the point it's amazing it lasted as long as it did.

>tfw cops in the USA already killed more innocent civilians this year than those terrorists did in that attack

>How would America look today if French held on their American territories?

Assuming the US didn't go to war to get more land (which is always a possibility), today the territory that used to be the French territory, as well as what the US annexed from Mexico, would either be part of France or a French descended nation as Australia is to the UK.

The US wouldn't be much more then the original colonies plus whatever they could get from concessions form the British.

Oregon and Washington would be a part of B.C.

Mexico would be a client state of the French.

These are just some of the things such a world would have.

>innocent civilians

There are Americans who actually believe that a noteworthy number of those shot where innocent.

does selling cigarettes deserve death?

>What is "Presumption of Innocence Until Proven Guilty"?

It does if you reach for a gun.

You're going to be in for a shock when bodycams become universal and you realize just how "innocent" those shot are.

Get your off topic pol shit out of here, it has absolutely nothing to do with this thread and isn't contributing to it in any way

>it's amazing it lasted as long as it did
I guess Habsburgs and their luck help preserving it

THE ONLY GOOD HABSBURGER IS A DEAD HABSBURGER

How the fuck did Montagnais have that much territory, it is all just shitty nothing nobody would want?

t. not American, for the record.

Nomadic tribes are a thing.

>it is all just shitty nothing nobody would want?

Pretty much. Even today over 90% of the population of Quebec is within 200 kilometres of the US border.

Even today that area has only 45 thousand people living in it.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord-du-Québec

You have never been that far north in Canada have you? It's essentially so fucking cold that pipes can freeze up and cause problems, and at certain times of the year you would have to light fires under cars to start them. Anyone that lives there has so much land they don't know what to do with it half the time, or they move away or kill themselves.
That's also what the germans had to do at Stalingrad for their tanks, imagine having to do all the bullshit at stalingrad every year.

Reminds me of docus on rich people that stuff all their money on the bank or in relatively safe investments, throw away their laptop and phone, and go live in the Canadian wilderness - while saying some shit about how they don't understand why people still live the rat race.

And they forget they get a non-stop monthly 10000 dollar drip feed in their bank account, don't need to work a day in their life and can spend all day shooting deer, ramming holes in ice and sawing down rotten trees near their house without having to worry about also having a job on the side.

It's smaller. It's only 600,000 miles^2 larger than the continental states, and it's 100,000 miles^2 smaller when you include Hawaii and Alaska

>imagine having to do all the bullshit at stalingrad every year
You mean living in Stalingrad?

Dutch has a good reason to hate. Anyways, I doubt HRE would last as long as it did if Habsburgs didn't manage to sit on the thrones of two powerful empires at once and back it up.

>You're going to be in for a shock when bodycams become universal and you realize just how "innocent" those shot are.
Oh, you mean like the Baltimore cop cought planting evidance by his body camera?

I was more thinking that guy who was "thrown off a bridge" who turned out to have jumped himself when trying to escape, or the guy who showed that a false sexual assault accusation was just that.

I think the (first) persia empire was also very decentralised and it worked.

It wasn't anywhere near the scale we're talking about, and it wasn't as decentralised as the HRE was.

The HRE wasn't even an empire, it was a glorified alliance of separate states whose territory didn't even encompass all of that of its member states.

>Cultural unity is just as important as military unity

Why would it be impossible? The Spanish Empire held much more than that at its height and older empires like the Chinese or Mongols held about as much or more than more modern Empires.

You dont need technology to unite humans, you need institutions to project your power and oversee your territories as you profit from them.