Too big to succeed? 'Rightsize' an overextended nation or empire

[Mitridates the Great]

The Byzantine Empire

Let go of Greece and Rome

Both Italy and the Balkans are a thorn in the Empire's long time survival and essencially useless

Have Heraclitus keep Egypt and the rest of North Africa and remain Emperor in Carthage while Phocas's Kingdom and Sassanid Persia burn in the grave they made for themselves instead of wasting your forces fighting them, building them up instead to face the inevitable adversary that as it would turn out would be the Caliphate while estabilishing better relations with the Pope and whoever rules Italy at that time of the week

Make sure to also keep the whole Hispania as well

Then, if things work according to plan, there will soon be a whole New World that will be roman

Then a Byzantine Spain? You are evil Aluma

Now I may try to do this in EU4

 

[Aluma]

Then a Byzantine Spain? You are evil Aluma

Now I may try to do this in EU4

Yup x3

Byzie Spain plus the New World and North Africa

And the capital is Carthage

 

[Mitridates the Great]

Yup x3

Byzie Spain plus the New World and North Africa

And the capital is Carthage

Too close to another powers, maybe better Sevilla or Granada or Cordoba

 

[Aluma]

Too close to another powers, maybe better Sevilla or Granada or Cordoba

Yeah but its where Heraclitus planned to make his Rome 3

 

[The Gunslinger]

Japan: I think if they contented themselves with Taiwan and could get all of Sakhalin, plus the Kurils they could trade with the rest of the world and sit pretty. Korea is unsustainable, and most other large pacific islands are as well.

I disagree. I think Japan was too late to the colonial game, but most of the Pacific would have been far easier to control barring a few islands. In 1903 the Philippines only had 7.6 million people, while Korea had well over 17 million. It also had more language, ethnic and religious divisions than could have been exploited. In the Dutch East Indies, Java had a whopping 28 million, with only 7 million on the rest of the islands. Should Japan have conquered everything save Java and Sumatra, it could easily have been colonized by Japan.

 

[Danilov II]

I'll try one that hasn't been done so far: the Angevin Empire.

Even before John lost all of his French possessions outside of Gascony in the early 1200s, one could argue that the Angevin Empire was overextended and contained too many vassals and de facto client states that were of a different culture than the Norman-English culture of the early Plantagenet kings, not to mention with so many of them they often launched revolts (often with the help of France), causing multiple fires to have to be put out at the same time. Henry II was a masterclass in keeping the whole thing together, but with the incompetent and tyrannical John, most of his vassals in modern day France decided to try their luck with the Capetian system instead.

If you can keep Henry II from marrying Eleanor of Aquitaine, I think his Angevin Empire can hold on to England + domination of the British Isles + Normandy/Anjou/puppeted Brittany a lot longer than in OTL. Historically, a lot of those Aquitaine vassals gave Henry and Richard a lot of headache with near endless revolts, and without them in the picture the Plantagenets can focus instead on a more compact and consolidated empire of the British Isle + northern France and Brittany.

I think Henry recognized this, IIRC he planned to leave Aquitaine to Richard separating it from Normandy/Maine/Anjou which would have gone to the Young King along with England. If that plan had held you may have seen a different result, although that's depending on the Young King to grow up and taking ruling seriously which did not appear to be the case at the time of his death. You might see Duke Richard (now fully a vassal of Phillip Augustus for Aquitaine) take Anjou and Maine from Young Henry while Phillip encroaches on Normandy if not completely dispossess him of it the same way he did John IOTL.

 

[AkhenatenOrRamses]

I think Henry recognized this, IIRC he planned to leave Aquitaine to Richard separating it from Normandy/Maine/Anjou which would have gone to the Young King along with England. If that plan had held you may have seen a different result, although that's depending on the Young King to grow up and taking ruling seriously which did not appear to be the case at the time of his death. You might see Duke Richard (now fully a vassal of Phillip Augustus for Aquitaine) take Anjou and Maine from Young Henry while Phillip encroaches on Normandy if not completely dispossess him of it the same way he did John IOTL.

I agree, that would've failed due to the quarrelling of the brothers, which we know from OTL that they did on and off. Maybe if Richard had had a son that succeeded as an adult the whole thing might've lasted a bit longer, but both John and Philip Augustus would both have a strong interest in seeing it torn apart for personal gain.

 

[Silver01]

Let go of Greece and Rome

but why tho? i mean sure there was time at least two ocassions when the empire lost greece and it was not great time

Both Italy and the Balkans are a thorn in the Empire's long time survival and essencially useless

italy in post justinian yes , balkans no one of the reasons why the muslim conquest was so succesfull was as we saw in many persian roman wars the balkans served as recruiting ground if something went wrong east they could be moved, but with it collapsing by 610s heraclius sent most of the army east had for some reason the balkan front not collapsed even if disaster like yarmourk occured he could have moved the balkan troops there like he did in the great war of the OTL.