I've just been chatting with a friend, and the topic of Carthage beating Rome came up, and she came out with this:
I myself ain't quite convinced about the plausibility of that chain of events, but Carthage beating Rome is one of the more common Antiquity AH topics, so it's worth discussing. Is Carthage beating Rome, in either the First or Second Punic War, plausible? What PoDs would cause that? What would the ramifications of a Carthaginian victory in either case be, for both Carthage and Rome as well as elsewhere?
And so on.
from a PoD of Hasdrubal winning at the Metaurus and successfully joining with Hannibal and taking Rome.Carthaginian language, trade and culture fucken explodes everywhere and gets powerful, Carthage isn't as army-centric and instead fosters some form of pan-Mediterranean trade stuff and the Parthians butt-fuck the Seleucids and reach the Mediterranean, causing Greece to drop a steaming shit in it's pants and align with Carthage for protection. Carthage gets into shit-fights with barbarians and Carthaginianises the Germans and stuff, next, Jesus fucken flops and basically becomes irrelevant, Muhammed flops, Egypt and Carthage suck each other off, North Africa becomes Carthaginian af, the Barca family dabs on the plebs, Mithraism replaces Christianity as the dominant religion in Europe, eventually Carthage dabs on Europe with its openness and stuff, Europe becomes crapper, North Africa becomes fucken amazing, Carthage gets archers and probably has some adventures in Africa.
I myself ain't quite convinced about the plausibility of that chain of events, but Carthage beating Rome is one of the more common Antiquity AH topics, so it's worth discussing. Is Carthage beating Rome, in either the First or Second Punic War, plausible? What PoDs would cause that? What would the ramifications of a Carthaginian victory in either case be, for both Carthage and Rome as well as elsewhere?
And so on.