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Description
This is a map of Armada-2, a setting in Steve Jackson Games' GURPS Infinite Worlds tabletop roleplaying game. It's is an alternate 1815 in a world where the Spanish Armada was victorious...ish*, the Dutch Revolt was crushed, and the Catholic League won the Wars of Religion in France. Spain and France dominate Europe for the vast majority of the 17th and 18th centuries, mostly allied but occasionally at odds: the Franco-Hapsburg rivalry of our timeline was mostly obviated in this one, but that doesn't mean they don't still have competing geopolitical interests. However, more often they've fought together against common enemies, namely Sweden and the Ottoman Empire. Sweden became a great power under Gustav II Adolf, but unlike OTL he didn't die in the Thirty Years' War because there wasn't one: TTL's historians refer instead to the German Wars, a longer but more irregular and less intense series of inter-religious conflicts in the Holy Roman Empire that characterized much of the 17th century. He continued to fight against Poland and Lithuania until he managed to become crowned as the monarch of both (though it's still not much more than a personal union: the Poles and Lithuanians were less than interested in giving up their liberal governments for Sweden's half-baked parliament and powerful Lutheran monarch), and later on acquired Pomerania, Prussia, and Brandenburg, as well as creating a league of Lutheran states in the Holy Roman Empire called the German Protectorate. Later Swedish monarchs would acquire Denmark, Norway, Silesia, and Novgorod, and support colonial projects in America and Africa. The Ottoman Empire, on the other hand, had no such luck in the 17th century, going into a protracted succession crisis and nearly crumbling under the combined might of Spain, France, and Austria in the Great Turkish War. Though the Empire survived it still spent much of the next century under attack from the Spanish, Austrians, Cossacks, Russians, and Persians, notwithstanding their friendly relations with Sweden.

No empire lasts forever, and Spain is starting to worry. France suffered a long period of unrest and famine in the latter half of the 18th century, which combined with a costly war against England and Sweden forced the government to raise taxes on the North American colonies, which (outside of Charlotania, established on the mouth of the Mississippi and mostly disconnected from the rest of New France) had been settled by Huguenots, Dutch Protestants, and English Puritans that up to that point had been used to being intentionally ignored by Paris. Predictably they were upset by this, and even more so by heavy-handed attempts to appropriate land held by Native Americans for sale to Catholic settlers. In 1789 the colonies in Canada and Illinois proclaimed their independence as the United Provinces of New France, igniting a major war that the United Provinces, alongside Sweden, won. The Morean War (1802-1805) was less of a catastrophe for the Catholic powers, but it was still an unjustifiably costly endeavor for Spain and Austria. For the Ottoman Empire, however, it was a turning point; in fact the Ottoman Empire technically ceased to exist in 1806 as an Albanian soldier by the name of Mehmet Ali, having worked his way up the ranks of the army, overthrew the Sultan, destroyed the Janissaries, and assumed the throne himself as Mehmet V, Sultan of Rumelia. He has since started a crash industrialization of the country, enacting land and finance reforms, building up a strong merchant marine, and financing mills and foundries. Meanwhile in India, yet another rival to Spanish imperialism has emerged in the Bengal Sultanate. Bengal is known in Europe as the Paradise of Nations, accounting for an astonishing twelve percent of the entire world's wealth and dominating the world's textile and steel industries. The Spanish had attempted to subjugate them in 1763, expecting an easy time (after all, Bengal was at that time a province of the disintegrating Mughal Empire) only to be met with an embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Nawab's expert artillerists. In retaliation, Bengal has instead forged strong commercial ties with Sweden, which to Madrid can only lead to political alliance at a later time. And, back in Europe, there are many in France, Germany, and Spain who gather in coffeehouses and publish pamphlets wondering whether they really need a King at all. Time will tell.

*Personally I'd expect Philip II would want the English throne for himself, as after all he'd held it some decades before. But the sourcebook says Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland was crowned King of England, which I can only assume was a compromise that achieved the main goals of the Spanish Armada (overthrowing Elizabeth to emancipate the English Catholics and stopping English aid to the Dutch Revolt) without bankrupting Spain.

I was originally going to hold off on posting this until I'd finished making a fancy legend with lots of notes and inset maps detailing specific regions, but to be honest I just got tired of working on it. I'll probably get back to it at some point, but for now if there are any questions you have I'll do my best to answer them in the comments.

Description
This is a map of Armada-2, a setting in Steve Jackson Games' GURPS Infinite Worlds tabletop roleplaying game. It's is an alternate 1815 in a world where the Spanish Armada was victorious...ish*, the Dutch Revolt was crushed, and the Catholic League won the Wars of Religion in France. Spain and France dominate Europe for the vast majority of the 17th and 18th centuries, mostly allied but occasionally at odds: the Franco-Hapsburg rivalry of our timeline was mostly obviated in this one, but that doesn't mean they don't still have competing geopolitical interests. However, more often they've fought together against common enemies, namely Sweden and the Ottoman Empire. Sweden became a great power under Gustav II Adolf, but unlike OTL he didn't die in the Thirty Years' War because there wasn't one: TTL's historians refer instead to the German Wars, a longer but more irregular and less intense series of inter-religious conflicts in the Holy Roman Empire that characterized much of the 17th century. He continued to fight against Poland and Lithuania until he managed to become crowned as the monarch of both (though it's still not much more than a personal union: the Poles and Lithuanians were less than interested in giving up their liberal governments for Sweden's half-baked parliament and powerful Lutheran monarch), and later on acquired Pomerania, Prussia, and Brandenburg, as well as creating a league of Lutheran states in the Holy Roman Empire called the German Protectorate. Later Swedish monarchs would acquire Denmark, Norway, Silesia, and Novgorod, and support colonial projects in America and Africa. The Ottoman Empire, on the other hand, had no such luck in the 17th century, going into a protracted succession crisis and nearly crumbling under the combined might of Spain, France, and Austria in the Great Turkish War. Though the Empire survived it still spent much of the next century under attack from the Spanish, Austrians, Cossacks, Russians, and Persians, notwithstanding their friendly relations with Sweden.

No empire lasts forever, and Spain is starting to worry. France suffered a long period of unrest and famine in the latter half of the 18th century, which combined with a costly war against England and Sweden forced the government to raise taxes on the North American colonies, which (outside of Charlotania, established on the mouth of the Mississippi and mostly disconnected from the rest of New France) had been settled by Huguenots, Dutch Protestants, and English Puritans that up to that point had been used to being intentionally ignored by Paris. Predictably they were upset by this, and even more so by heavy-handed attempts to appropriate land held by Native Americans for sale to Catholic settlers. In 1789 the colonies in Canada and Illinois proclaimed their independence as the United Provinces of New France, igniting a major war that the United Provinces, alongside Sweden, won. The Morean War (1802-1805) was less of a catastrophe for the Catholic powers, but it was still an unjustifiably costly endeavor for Spain and Austria. For the Ottoman Empire, however, it was a turning point; in fact the Ottoman Empire technically ceased to exist in 1806 as an Albanian soldier by the name of Mehmet Ali, having worked his way up the ranks of the army, overthrew the Sultan, destroyed the Janissaries, and assumed the throne himself as Mehmet V, Sultan of Rumelia. He has since started a crash industrialization of the country, enacting land and finance reforms, building up a strong merchant marine, and financing mills and foundries. Meanwhile in India, yet another rival to Spanish imperialism has emerged in the Bengal Sultanate. Bengal is known in Europe as the Paradise of Nations, accounting for an astonishing twelve percent of the entire world's wealth and dominating the world's textile and steel industries. The Spanish had attempted to subjugate them in 1763, expecting an easy time (after all, Bengal was at that time a province of the disintegrating Mughal Empire) only to be met with an embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Nawab's expert artillerists. In retaliation, Bengal has instead forged strong commercial ties with Sweden, which to Madrid can only lead to political alliance at a later time. And, back in Europe, there are many in France, Germany, and Spain who gather in coffeehouses and publish pamphlets wondering whether they really need a King at all. Time will tell.

*Personally I'd expect Philip II would want the English throne for himself, as after all he'd held it some decades before. But the sourcebook says Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland was crowned King of England, which I can only assume was a compromise that achieved the main goals of the Spanish Armada (overthrowing Elizabeth to emancipate the English Catholics and stopping English aid to the Dutch Revolt) without bankrupting Spain.

I was originally going to hold off on posting this until I'd finished making a fancy legend with lots of notes and inset maps detailing specific regions, but to be honest I just got tired of working on it. I'll probably get back to it at some point, but for now if there are any questions you have I'll do my best to answer them in the comments.