What could stop a country which includes great Britain and france with true borders (Picture)?

What could stop a country which includes great Britain and france with true borders (Picture)?

A Holy Roman Empire that is at once Holy, Roman, and Empire.

Having said that, what I'm going to call Imperial Aquitaine isn't possible in real life. As long as the Channel exists to slow down communication and make the movement of armies difficult, folk in Britain are going to want to be free to do their own thing without having to listen to some asshole in France; or vice-versa if the seat of Imperial Aquitaine's power is in Britain instead of France (though it wouldn't be - all the money's in France naturally, and would remain so until England both squared away the whole Scottish issue an got her world empire up and running).

Oh, that reminds me of another problem - England is the only one with any real historical ties to France. Wales, Scotland, and Ireland have no equivalent tie. Now no one gives a fuck about the Wales and Ireland, but Scotland is JUST populous and ornery enough that you'd have to fix that problem first.

A coalition

The russian winter.

>what is the Auld Alliance

not a bad post otherwise

A sudden, unexpected naval invasion of Britain.
God knows how, maybe from Scandinavia.

>what is the Auld Alliance

Not enough to build Imperial Aquitaine on, given that the sole reason for its existence was "fuck England", which isn't exactly conducive to the creation of a unified Britain and France since England makes up both most and the best parts of the island of Great Britain, and I'm pretty sure that even in Medieval times England's population was like twice that of Scotland's.

Damn.

Would a france on steroids be enough? I am looking for alternative nazis/facists for world war 2.

Prussia or Germany. What period are we under?

France on steroids is frankly (ha!) terrifying. For most of its history, France was the most powerful nation in Europe thanks to a combination of population and geography, and also getting its shit together and organized much earlier than other European nations thanks to the Hundred Years' War (which actually lasted 229 years) basically forcing a shared "French" identity onto its people.

France that could successfully absorb and integrate Belgium and the Netherlands would also have at their disposal the region that, historically, the Industrial Revolution kicked off in, which was again a matter of geography as much as people.

Finally, consider that even after the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars concluded - killing French sons, draining French coffers, stretching French resources to their limits, getting France into multi-nation Coalition wars against herself - France was *still* the second or third most powerful nation in Europe for most of the 19th Century.

The easiest way to create France on steroids is to mitigate or get rid of England. England's nightmare scenario for all of its history has been a single nation controlling the affairs of the Continent, and for most of England's history that meant fucking over France because France had the best shot of pulling it off. If England can't be a constant cock block for France, then there's very little, historically speaking, that could stand in France's way. Maybe a permanently united Iberian Union, or like I suggested upthread a Holy Roman Empire that actually lived up to its name.

But remove or mitigate England/Great Britain as a serious power, and France ascendancy is pretty much assured as long as Germany doesn't rise. And preventing the rise of Germany is as simple as keeping the HRE fighting amongst themselves forever. Basically turn the HRE into a proxy-war battleground between Russia and France and you're good to go.

>a country which includes great Britain and france with true borders
America could stop it. Other than that, no entity in Europe could even begin to measure up to it. If we include those two into one empire, that means even a united Grossdeutschland is pitiful in comparison. Depending on how early this Frangleterre unites in history it could easily force some sort of restored West Roman Empire onto Europe. Easily.

>But remove or mitigate England/Great Britain as a serious power, and France ascendancy is pretty much assured as long as Germany doesn't rise.

But if you remove England/Great Britain as a serious power, than you've eliminated the impetus to unify the French people under an umbrella cultural identity as the Hundred Years' War would've never happened... Unless, of course, the war goes even worse for England than it already had.

Incidentally, mitigating England as a serious power is as simple as preventing England from getting any colonies up and running and ESPECIALLY keeping them out of India. Have the Portuguese or Spanish get into a few wars with England that prevents England from getting her colonies and Indian connection going, or maybe make the English colonies meet disaster after disaster - give them the same kind of luck that Scotland had at Darien, for example. You can also ahve England fail to take over Ireland. As extra insult to injury, make the Scottish attempt to set up Darien actually succeed somehow, so that money starts rolling in to Scotland and as a result the Scottish never need to sign the Acts of Union. Scotland will never have the population needed to take over Great Britain or found some kind of Scotland-based Acts of union, but a constant influx of resources from New World colonies (a Nova Scotia that's actually Scottish!) will keep her from needing to join one herself.

Hell, let the Irish set up a New World colony. Nothing major, maybe a single Caribbean Island, or a few thousand square kilometers in what today we call New England.

Now, England will get a few small colonies of her own, that's inevitable, but the point is to prevent the big spread of North America that she got historically.

Then after that - keep England out of India. Give it to some other European power, or if you feel like a challenge, have India remain mostly independent. Historically it was about on-par with Europe technologically, and given just a few extra decades of noninterference from Europe might start getting into the colony business itself, with different Indian nations setting up colonies along Africa, or down into Australia.

The thing is that England was never a serious power until about the late 1600s/early 1700s, when the Thirteen Colonies got up and running and started flooding England with money. Before that England was a poor nation, strong enough to bother France and other powers but never being any real threat itself. In modern-day terms 1500s England was sort of like modern Canada. Quite powerful in its local sphere, but not a serious world player, and not the most powerful nation even within its sphere.

The Hundred Years' War can still go down as it historically did, which gives the impetus to the rise of France. Disasters only need to start striking England starting around the 1500s or 1600s.

>mfw Spain always colonizes New England before England in EU IV

Yes they would definitely be enough, they were a pretty strong power before world war II. Hell in world war 2 they had better tanks than the germans but were just complete retards when it came to the Ardennes.

If spain doesn't fall apart because of the mass influx of gold probably spain

>America could stop it

HAHAHAHAHA. No.

Imagine 1812, but with Both British and French Troops.

Yeah, the French failure in World War II comes down to poor strategic planning and bad political decisions, including defeatism as soon as the Maginot Line was breached. Oh, and STUPENDOUS luck on the part of the Germans. It wasn't a failure of equipment or soldiery.

To be fair, that's a pretty simplistic explanation of Franco-Spanish geopolitics in Europe. What allowed the Habsburgs to keep France down for a while was the fact that the king of Spain was also Holy Roman Emperor, Lord of the Lowlands, King of Hungary as well as having territories in Italy on top of having its extremely lucrative colonies. France sought an approachement to England in order to counterbalance it (Field of the Cloth of Gold), but Henry VIII was driven away from France through marriage to one of Charles V's relatives. This is why the controversial Franco-Ottoman alliance started in the first place: France was simply stuck in an encirclement Bismarck could only dream of. As soon as this encirclement collapsed (with the abdication of Charles V and the Thirty Years War), France managed to oust the Habsburgs as top dog.

Now imagine the same scenario, except France has the British Isles on its side by virtue of ruling it. At best that makes the Bourbons and the Habsburgs equals. Probably with some slight edge to France, considering even in our history Pavia could've gone either way.

Sorry, but assuming that America still gets itself set up properly as it did historically, then it's true, America still stops it. 3,000 miles of ocean is a logistical nightmare for 1700s/1800s nations. Imperial Aquitaine will run into the same problems that Britain did in the Revolutionary War, or which Japan ran into in China during WWII: they can probably take and hold the coastal cities, but will lack the manpower and resources necessary to range far inland, giving America freedom to maneuver.

The thing is that during the 19th Century, it's more than possible for a European nation to beat America in a war, but the problem is that it's just not going to have long-term impact. The resources of the best part of an entire continent are still going to gradually open up to America - gold, oil, lumber, minerals, trade goods, etc. And food. So much food. Which supports a huge population.

Stopping America's ascendancy is impossible for a European power. It requires Mexico getting its shit together real damn early and preventing America from acquiring significant Pacific ports. And fixing Mexico is a daunting hitorical challenge.

It's easier if America simply never exists in the first place, which is perfectly doable as long as the North American colonies never really get a sense of nation, which is perfectly doable as long as they're founded by different nations. Oh, and strong surviving Native nations won't hurt either.

>Sorry, but assuming that America still gets itself set up properly as it did historically
>America only arose because of French intervention in the Revolutionary war
>The same France that is now united with Britain
>Frangleterre now rules the only country that ever stood a fraction of a chance of stopping it
GG guys, but all hope is lost. Enjoy your one world government.

You know the biggest issue the English had during the Revolutionary War was IT WAS HAPPENING DURING THE NAPOLEONIC WARS

WHICH WOULD NEVER HAPPEN WITH A UNITED BRITAIN AND FRANCE

Like I said, it depends a lot of when and how things happen and where our Point of Divergence is. But IF you get some equivalent of the United States, then it's inevitable that it will become a great power due to population, geography, comfortable isolation from European affairs, and resources.

If you want to prevent America (or a similar nation) from becoming a superpower, then you need to stop America from ever existing in the first place - keeping North America disunited, for example.

>You know the biggest issue the English had during the Revolutionary War was IT WAS HAPPENING DURING THE NAPOLEONIC WARS

Nnnno it wasn't. The Revolutionary War was 1775-1783, if I recall correctly. The French Revolutionary Wars didn't kick off until the 1790s, and the Napoleonic Wars of course were even later.

I think you're confusing revolution war with war of 1812.

Perhaps I am, a united Britain-France however would still see zero French Support for the Americans.

Which means a decisive American Loss.

This one

>United Britain-France
>By making Britain suddenly not a highly defensive Battle-experience Island who suddenly folds.

Right, you're doing it all wrong let me fix it for you.

>Henry V doesn't die
>English King on the Throne of France
>Magna Carta established across the French Aristocracy
>Slow cultural Osmosis combine the two nations into strong steadfast allies
>Spain literally fucked over.
>Years later

>American colonies fight for independence
>Crushed wholesale
>Given representation to prevent further dissent
>British-France Empire Rules the world
>Eventually collapses due to running costs and Balkanisation
>EU run by Britain-France and Germany cucked forever.

Literally one moment in History decided the unification of England and France.

You do know that one of the direct causes of the French revolution was that the US refused to pay back France, right?

Well, the economic failure of a majority of it's oversea colonies, but I guess that too.

Wouldn't happen with a united Britain-France.

Nationalism.

Well considering the cultural history of those regions

Itself

God, those are some sexy borders

Charles V

robohitler

>Robohitler
>A match for Charles de Gaulle piloting his personal gundam Mechapoleon
No

Thing is, the american revolution wouldn't happen if the brits weren't so pushed from the last war they were in. Of course rebels would exist, but they wouldn't be able at all to get support. And to keep in mind, the american revolution was carried out by a small, angry elite with a good, but not huge mercenary army.

Without the heavy taxes, the colonial aristocracy wont have a stick up their ass for loosing out on plantations and slave taxes.

>Implying either would stand a chance when Roosevelt and Churchill combine to form the Anglobot

At some point I had an INCREDIBLY autistic picture of Englandball and Americaball on some flying steamboat while Franceball zoomed by on the back of a mechanical rooster, but I deleted it because Redditball is autistic shit.

the sunset invasion

A unified Britain-France would be culturally interesting.

I think English culture would dominate French culture though, the Language is more modular and Parisians would never exist.

>English culture would dominate French culture

Also make french military leadership competent and organized instead of the feuding clusterfuck it's been for basically it's entire history (except for napoleon).

France has historically always had excellent training, superior equipment, usually superior numbers, excellent junior officers and NCOs, quality logistics and engineering support, but the worst general staff.

My god french general staff has always been soul-crushingly incompetent (except for napoleon). Any intensive study of french military history is a long saga of watching their military leadership, time and again, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Well, Relatively speaking Rural French culture is literally match for match the same as Rural English culture the two countries are extremely similar.

However, England has things like Magna Carter and "First among peers" that sort of prevented the Aristocracy from imploding like it did in France. This led to the rise of the British "Middle class" who funded tons of civic works. the Industrial Revolution caught on massively in Britain for a reason.

>Every French commander other than Napoleon has been incompetent
>Who is Turenne?
>Who is Villars?
>Who is the Grand Condé?
>Who is Bureau
>Who is Guesclin?
>Who is Philippe Auguste?

You're pretending France stumbled its way into becoming the most prominent power in Europe through happy accidents. Just because you can mention a few instances of incompetence (and really, for what country can you not do this?) doesn't mean this is the norm. If it was, France would've gone the route of Burgundy, Aragon or any of the many other nations no longer on the map.

But the aristocracy imploded several times in England. They just managed to come back from the edge.

I think that a Nationalist China with natural borders that was able to settle disputes with its neighbors (very roughly in the same domain of plausibility as a Franco-British Union) would inevitably become economically and industrially stronger than said Union.

5-7 decades after that, India + ASEAN would follow.

>implying the franco-brits wouldn't own China

because user has never engaged in a bit of hyperbole to make a point at all, user. French military leadership has always been a tug of war between the strong-cocked champions of gallic puissance and the people who have to clean up the messes of those who let their elan do their thinking for them.

France has not stumbled into being the most prominent power of europe through happy accidents. France has consistently been the greatest power power in europe, but has an unfortunate tendency to be hamstrung by leaders that let their ego do their thinking for them. Which is by no means a uniquely french trait, but there's a reason the term is chateau general, and not schloss general or castello general or Зaмкoвый гeнepaл.

When the french get their shit in the bag and have consistently skilled and organized leadership, they've fought all of europe by themselves and won.

Well I think by mentioning India I'm taking into account the idea of them owning various nations that will eventually surpass them economically.

Decolonization will happen, and China isn't mega-conquerable. Even if it was, the government installed post-colonization won't be some sort of Communist fuck-up, and they'll move forwards to eventually surpass the Union, just as they would have without being colonized.

The most that the Union will own is going to be Hong Kong, which is probably still going to be ceded as an SAR with the 50-year timer.

...

>There will never be a country ruled by a Triumverate of Caesar, Napoleon and Aelxander

I think Alexander is a bit below the other two, since him facing a Greek force as big as his own didn't happpen much, while Caesar had a civil war to win and Napoleon kind of fought on equal grounds.

Apples and Oranges, sure, but Alexander basically steamrolled a bunch of bickering city states and vaste hordes of badly organised Persians.

I'll post it in eight hours.

>Alexander
He was a great general, but couldn't govern for shit.

Well, who should be replacing Alexander then? Cyrus? Ashoka? Or someone else?

G I L G A M E S H

Charles V

>>Eventually collapses due to running costs and Balkanisation
I think that would end up taking a long, long time without any serious threats to it's continued existance.

You have to remember Britain didn't get cucked out of most of it's colonies until after WW2, which isn't going happen in the alternate time line.

I see the Civ VI production team is here.

So, basically Canada.

>MechArthur Pendragon (with an included dragon) fighting Mechapoleon and Robohitler

I'm half tempted to run this game.

You mean how France played Scotland for centuries, while giving nothing in return?

Oh come on, Scotland got that warm fuzzy feeling of knowing they were involved in a significant nation!

Louisana can fit in there too, although the spanish influence may throw it off a bit.

How does Civ VI compare to V and IV?
Personally I got into IV after V and I can say that it was quite the upgrade (or rather V was a downgrade?) in every regard except graphics. I don't even mind the doomstacks (they're just a more concentrated version of blankets of doom, no biggy).

Right, it has the best launch that Civ has had in recent years. It's well worth it. Now, the thing about it is attempting to solve many of the issues that V had. No, that doesn't mean solving V's doomstacks, it means making decisions a bit more meaningful; which V had already done in comparison to other Civ games. You're always making very conscious decisions.

That said, it's very much digging even further into its boardgame roots. Don't expect the attempts to be a simulationist game from before, they have been very explicity designing VI as sort of an electronic version of an eurogame, so to speak. If you want games more akin to IV in that sense, yeah, you won't find it.

That said, personally, the game is more vibrant and better designed than ever. Just know that it's even more of an electronic boardgame than V was (and V post-BNW was very much that).

t. V (and, in the future, VI) modder

>and V post-BNW was very much that
What did BNW specifically change then?

And thanks for that information. Sounds like I'm for now better off sticking with Civ IV. I especially like how diplomacy actually means something there and you can make gamelong friends, rather than always needing to wage war on everyone no matter what victory condition you're aiming for (good luck trying a peaceful science victory in Civ V, it's fucking impossible).

nah they focus down Caribbean and mexico, its France and Norway who ninja New England.

>What did BNW specifically change then?
BNW and G&K brought new things to the forefront, such as adjusting AI, adding trade routes, the deep change of the cultural victory, Religion as a game mechanic, Ideologies, a deep change in the tech tree... If you were playing Vanilla, get BNW and G&K.

>good luck trying a peaceful science victory in Civ V, it's fucking impossible
I consistently get them on Deity, dude. It's not, it's just that you have to play the game of realpolitik even more. Hell, I get Cultural Victories on Deity without warfare quite often, and those are seen as the hardest victories post-BNW.

Cool idea for an alternative history setting?
Medieval Europe divided between several superpower"Roman Empires" all claiming to be the one true Empire.

Western Roman Empire (France and Britain)
Holy Roman Empire (Germans, maybe some of Italy)
Eastern Roman Empire (as it was historically at its peak, this is the one true Roman Empire of course)

The city of Rome itself could be a Papal State, fanatically religious. Each of the Empires lay claim to Rome but none has dared to take it for fear of sparking a war with the others.

Dragons with tentacles

Justinian maybe?

Why not toss in United Iberia and north Africa too for good measure? And some Pester John nonsense as well for a total of five.

And then the pope declares a crusade
Either
A: aimed at the turks
B: aimed at prussian pagans
C: aimed at celtic pagans in ireland and scotland
D: aimrd at some retard mountain clan near rome
Which ends up causing a huge shitstorm leading to war

Maybe I formulated my question wrongly. What I meant to ask is: what did BNW specifically change that made it more of an electronic boardgame than pre-BNW Civ V?

Ah, nothing much, all in all, they were just a lot more explicit about it. And playing V without BNW is pretty dumb.

>Scottish new world colonies
>Irish new world colonies
>Indian colonies all along Southern/Eastern Africa
>No UK
>Larger France
I want to see that map

Clock's ticking, fag.

There are problems. Historically Scotland tried to get into the colony business in Darien, in modern Panama. There were a few issues with this. Namely that they were trying to reenact Monty Python.

>All the other European nations said we were daft to send colonist to a mosquito-infested swamp in Panama! But we did it anyway! Just to show them.
>And everyone died from malaria and starvation.
>So we sent a second expedition of colonists!
>And they died too.
>So we send a third expedition!
>They got blockaded by the Spanish, attacked by Natives, and died from malaria and starvation.
>But the fourth colony! The fourth colony survived!

(Except no it didn't historically, and Scotland spent literally a quarter of all the money in Scotland on this venture. A big reason why they signed the Acts of Union with England was because the English guaranteed the Scottish debt)

>No one gives a fuck about the Welsh

Charles Martel

Do the welsh even care about the welsh?

The Welsh were probably the happiest non-English members of the United Kingdom, they welcomed the Laws in Wales and had relatively little bullshit happen to them compared to the Irish or the Scottish highlanders. The retention of Welsh compared to Irish or Scottish Gaelic, even as an integral part of the Kingdom of England, speaks volumes for how troublesome they weren't. So England doesn't have to give a fuck about Wales any more than it has to give a fuck about York or the County Palatine of Durham.

Much better than being Irish.

>Much better than being Irish.

You just made an enemy for life, sheep shagger!

Succession crisis

>Henry V doesn't die
>English King on the Throne of France

Which is fine while Henry is alive, but you still run into the same problem that the English aristocracy had: his son Henry VI was an imbecile, like his grandad Charles the Mad of France. If his Henry V is alive there's a good chance he'll have other sons and some of the problems caused by Lil' Henry's minority and weak rule can be avoided but its still just kicking that can further down the road. You probably wouldn't get the Yorkist uprising happening in the same way because Henry VI's piss poor governance won't alienate Richard of York's faction now, but the newly conquered French and any surviving heirs to the French monarchy are going to more than make up for it. With a "united" France and England you're going to see marriages between English and French aristocrats leading to lots of children with claims on both sides of the channel, setting up territorial disputes forever.