Arrix85: Well, the biggest immediate problem with post-war partition means that the biggest deciding principle will be whose troops are where. That could lead to some people getting overly-enthusiastic about grabbing territory. Having Orthodoxy joined together could be a good thing, but also bad if the Orthodox states start fighting with each other. No Blue Horde means they're now neighbors, and neighbors tend to argue.
Staying out of the Ukraine would likely be beneficial. Crimea obviously falls in the Roman sphere, but Ukrainian holdings would lead to endless disputes with N-L-P. In my EU3 games, I stay out of the Ukraine, but that's because it gives my Empire ugly borders in my opinion.
Derekc2: I don't know very much about Hetalia, so I can't answer that question. But if I understand it right, Novgorod would be the guy who's constantly hooking up with girls who are buffer than him (Lithuania and Pronsk). Vlachia's the new kid on the block who's not sure what he's doing, so he mainly imitates Rhomania. Genoa's the guy with weird friends. I can't think of anything else at the moment.
I wouldn't say Arles=France TTL. It's more Med oriented, not Germany oriented, and far more mercantile and Provencal than OTL France ever could be. If Arles was able to reconquer France and the center of political gravity moved back up to Paris, the end result might be something close to OTL France though.
Lithuania and Poland do hate each other. Poland's the main thing protecting the Teutonic Knights, and N-L would love nothing more than driving the Order into the sea.
Elfwine: I don't think Greece is appropriate, but it's much more well known than Hellas. The theme covering most of modern Greece is called the Theme of Hellas. I'm not sure what would be other good choices, Epirus and Macedonia are already taken, while Thessaly, Attica, and Peloponnesus are all too small.
SavoyTruffle: Novgorod-Lithuania-Pronsk, that's a mouthful for sure. This Russia would still head for the Pacific, but it's significantly more western focus starting much earlier will draw its attention more towards Europe, which will slow its Siberian expansion.
Jan Hus' theology will be important. I butterflied the Hussite wars away so I could steal their tactics for the Vlachs, but I wanted him to still make an impact. The continuing schism was a perfect place.
DuQuense: Interesting, that would be quite useful. The Empire does have the advantage too of being near to huge oil fields, so if they took those, coal is only really necessary for getting started. Do you have any sources on worldwide coal, iron, and oil deposits? I'm wondering how feasible TTL Ottoman (I know they'd have a ton of oil), Ethiopian, and Wu industrialization would be.
That breakdown is reasonable. The main problem would be afterwards when trade picks up and the powers start arguing over who taxes the river trade that's along both their borders.
eliphas8: The resentment would likely come after a decade or too, when Ukraine/Black Sea trade really picks up, and everybody starts arguing who gets what piece.
Evilprodigy: I didn't give an exact pop figure. Targoviste is about 14,000 as of 1435. Small potatoes compared to the Roman Empire, but big for its area.
frozenpredator: It's coming all right.
I'm curious, in your game did any of your friends ask where you got your ideas? What was their response?
Dragos Cel Mare: I'm not into anime myself, but then I've never really looked into it. Regarding the size of the TL, it's a good news, bad news thing. Its size means that it's popular and people are reading, but that also might intimidate completely new readers. I'm working on expanded the section in Finished Timelines, so hopefully that will help.
Tyg: I didn't even think about central Asian trade, but that's a really good point. The demand of Roman cities for foodstuffs driving Ukrainian agriculture though was something I thought of as a way of further integrating Russia into Europe/Med earlier and in a more friendly manner. Russia's not alone in this TL, which will have a big impact on its character.
River tolls I see becoming a big trouble point in the future. The post-war borders would likely be set on rivers as the most obvious natural border, but then who gets to levy tolls? The situation is further muddled by the fact that Genoa controls the Don Delta (from its colony at Tana) and the Strait of Kerch (from its colony at Vospoda).
Short update today, mainly to set up from the coming battle, which will be narrative like Cappadocian Caesarea (but shorter).
"So once again I am called to war. Sigh; I feel another headache coming on. I've been fighting since Timur invaded Anatolia, the first time. I fought at Cappadocian Caesarea and I was already a tourmarch. I am getting too old for this."-attributed to Dragos cel Mare
1436: As planned, each of the signatories of the Targoviste agreement launch their attacks in April. Vlachia invades the Ukraine from the west via Bessarabia while Georgian troops swarm north from the Caucasus mountains. Meanwhile the Novgorodian soldiers sweep south all along their long frontier, but with the primary thrust directed down the Volga with the planned target of Sarai.
The main Roman attack is based from Theodoro with the goal of overrunning the Crimean peninsula. However at the same time, another Roman army is to move up the Don river, with the primary goal of securing the Don watershed and the secondary target of beating the Novgorodians to Sarai. Whoever captures the Horde capital will be in a great position when it comes time to divvy up the spoils. However that operation requires the cooperation of the Genoese colony at Tana. Theodoros proposes a demonstration by some of the purxiphoi; Demetrios wants to try something a bit more diplomatic. His proposal, which is accepted, is that Demetrios will drop the 2,000 hyperpyra that Genoa must pay annually for Galata in exchange for using Tana as a supply depot so long as hostilities continue between Constantinople and Sarai.
With a supply base secure, the attack is launched. While Demetrios himself commands the Crimean thrust, the invasion of the Don river valley is led by Pavlos Doukas, a cousin of Manuel. He is one of a new class of officers, one who basks in the prestige of being part of the army that bested Timur but is too young to have actually fought against the warlord. He is the strategos of the Opsician tagma, posted there in an effort to conciliate the eastern Anatolians who are enamored with the Doukas family because of Manuel.
Certain that Romans can overcome all odds, Pavlos races up the river, doing little to secure his flanks or fulfill his primary assignment, focusing instead on the glory that would accrue to him as the conqueror of Sarai. With ten thousand men he charges toward the Horde capital, unaware that the Khan Jabbar Berdi is gathering his troops, ready to fall on the isolated Roman column with almost three times that number. While his strategy forces him to abandon the outlying regions to the Orthodox Alliance, Jabbar hopes that if he can inflict a sizeable defeat on the most powerful of his adversaries, it might scare Vlachia and Georgia enough to cause them to bow out, allowing him to turn with full force upon Novgorod before the Romans can regroup.
From what little news he is getting of Pavlos, Demetrios is now seriously alarmed. Returning to the Crimea has been bad for his health, so he dispatches Dragos cel Mare up the Don river with a flying column of eight hundred cavalry and five hundred mounted infantry to order Pavlos to rein in his advance. Dragos eventually meets up with the Opsician tagma near the ruins of the town of Voronezh destroyed by the Mongol invasion, just south of where the Voronezh river flows into the Don. There the Opsicians have forded the river to prepare for the final assault on Sarai itself.
It is then that Jabbar Berdi launches his attack, when the Roman troops have their back against the Don, their artillery on the other side of the river. The Tatars press in close, making sure the Romans cannot disengage and retreat back across the ford. The missile troops do their best to keep the horsemen away but they are vastly outnumbered by the twenty nine thousand Horde riders. The skutatoi can do nothing but remain fixed in their defensive formations, largely immune to the missile volleys but unable to move. Dragos is unable to launch any of his signature charges as the kataphraktoi and heavy koursores are too slow to catch the horse archers in the open terrain, while the light koursores would be torn to shreds by the missile volleys. For now, despite their massive numerical disparity, the Roman army holds, but once they run out of missiles and endurance, they will be destroyed.
