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PaperclipPerfector  12hr ago (text post)   503 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 8, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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@MadMonzer comment:

It is worth pointing out that the Kingdom of Canada is still technically a vassal of the British Empire, so pressing the claim would mean with war with the top liege and all his vassals, which probably include nuclear Gandhi.

(1) It is somewhat interesting to note that Victoria 3 has introduced a new tier above empire, called "hegemony". (It reminds me of my abortive attempt to make a Crusader Kings 2 mod with all the titles shifted down by a step, so that "mega-empires" like India and Rome could be on their own tier separate from regular empires like Bengal and Italy.) In-game, India is a hegemony, Britain is an empire, and Canada is a kingdom. Personally, though, I think it makes more sense to call Canada an empire, with each province afforded the dignity of kingdom status in the federation. (The USA's states, with their tradition of "dual sovereignty", definitely should count as kingdoms.)

(2) Canada is not a vassal of Britain. Rather, the title is still personally held by Charles himself, though he has delegated the administrative minutiae to local steward Trudeau. Call it a personal union. (India does count as a vassal.)

In one of Canada's few contributions to the English language, it's actually the Dominion of Canada.

It's meant to convey a large self governing territory that's part of a larger empire where there are sparsely populated areas and native tribes that aren't exactly under the control of the government, but don't have the population or organization to be recognized as their own territories.

Given that a Duchy can be meaningfully sovereign (they have their own laws, for example), I don't see why the US States and Canadian Provinces can't be Duchy-tier titles. The average present-day population of a US state is 6 million, and the median is 4.5 million. The typical present-day population of a CK2 de jure Duchy in Western Europe looks like 2-3 million (much higher in England because of industrial-era population growth) vs about 15 million for a Kingdom. Also, the nearest equivalent to US states in terms of their shared sovereignty are the Electorates of the HRE, which are Duchy-tier. I think the US was a Kingdom-tier title at the time of the founding (given that it was plausible for the British Empire to vassalize it) and became an Empire in the usual way once it de facto controlled 80% of its de jure territory.

population

But what about area? Personally, I feel that a useful statistic for comparing the "sizes" of geographic entities with significantly different population densities is the product of population and area.

  • K. of Bavaria: 9.4⋅1011 people⋅km2

  • K. of Austria: 7.6⋅1011 people⋅km2

  • K. of Pennsylvania: 1.6⋅1012 people⋅km2

  • K. of Virginia: 6.3⋅1011 people⋅km2

Also, what really matters is the inherent prestige of the title, not what the title actually controls. The ERE was an empire even when reduced to one province.

I think the US was a Kingdom-tier title at the time of the founding (given that it was plausible for the British Empire to vassalize it) and became an Empire in the usual way once it de facto controlled 80% of its de jure territory.

Well, we can imagine that the de jure map changes as population density skyrockets with the colonization of virgin land. Start with the sparsely-populated colonies as duchies, the Dominion of New England as a failed kingdom, and the USA as a successful kingdom. Then at some point (between EU4 and V3) population density becomes high enough that the states now are important enough to be considered kingdoms. The sea-to-shining-sea USA can be a hegemony, encompassing the empires of New England, the Mid-Atlantic, the South, the Midwest, Louisiana, and the West. (Or something vaguely similar to that.)

K. of Bavaria: 9.4⋅1011 people⋅km2 K. of Austria: 7.6⋅1011 people⋅km2

Per ck2wiki, Austria is a de jure Duchy and the Kingdom of Bavaria covers a much larger area than modern Bavaria, including most of modern Austria. So those numbers are too low for a CK2 Kingdom. I don't have time to boot up a game right now, but will check when I do.

Come for the politics, stay for the Paradox nerdery. Brett Devereaux for antipope!

CK2Wiki

The kingdoms of Bavaria and Austria as they existed in the Victoria 3 time period are more relevant for comparison to US states, IMO. I think those borders are essentially identical to today's borders.

I haven't played any Vicky or HOI titles, unfortunately (and I haven't played enough EUIV). This thread began with a Glitterhoof post, so I assumed we were playing CK2.

I was imagining a CK2-ish game extending from the CK2 time period all the way through the V3 time period—like [insert one of the vaporware yet-to-be-released Paradox competitor games].

One of my favorite half-joking proposals: Either the US should get 50 seats at the UN, or the EU should get one. They are both unions of sovereign states under the umbrella of a larger entity, after all.

There's actually a precedent to that - Ukrainian SSR and Belorussian SSR used to have its own seat at UN, along the USSR seat. So USSR essentially held three seats, despite the SSRs being much less independent than US states. USSR wanted all 15 SSRs in but the US said if they do that, then they get 48 US states as members. So they bargained and since USSR had pretty strong position they agreed on every nominally independent state being in, despite being de-facto dependent (e.g. Philippines at the time) and even British India being in, but USSR gets three seats.

One of my favorite half-joking proposals: Either the US should get 50 seats at the UN, or the EU should get one. They are both unions of sovereign states under the umbrella of a larger entity, after all.

The individual states of the US are prohibited by the Constitution from signing treaties, which means that they can't join treaty-governed international organisations. If UN voting power was weighted by some combination of population and budgetary contribution (as it should be) then this argument would be otiose.

EU countries continue to have separate foreign policies. Sure, they're coordinated, but there's no larger mechanism to ensure absolutely unanimous action in foreign and security matters, as Hungary demonstrates.

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