Flexor the Mighty!
18/100 Strength!
Doesn't sound very interesting to me but If you and your table will have fun with it go ahead.
American Indians Colonize the Old world in 1250 BC
It all depends on of the Americans bring over deadly diseases the same way as the European settles did. Without most of the natives dieing off the settlers would have been far less successful than they had been. Likewise unless the Americans bring over a deadly plague they will have some trouble establishing more of a foothold, although Britain would make for a good staging ground.
Although I think American settlers would most likely focus on northern Africa and Iberia as those are the closest to them and provide reasonable good settlement opportunity. It also depends on what they want from the "new" world. In history sugar and tobacco was the main export from America to Europe which made it worthwhile to colonize there. But what does Europe have that America is lacking. You have mentioned horses already, but what else?
Also don't forget that like when the Europeans arrives in America, the Americans should not be a united front, but there should be several nations with different goals.
What exactly do you intend with the date of 1200BC? I assume you want the Europeans to be as primitive as the Americans were when the settlers arrived so to basically mirror the situation. The problem with that is that most people do not know much about that time period. Imo its best to use a date which gives the players at least some reference. 1100BC might work as in that century you had the war for Troy and the Odyssey.
I am not sure how the nations in Europe would react to the Americans and if they would accept their technology and trade with them or fight against them. Although the image of an Egyptian charioteer with a imported musket instead of a bow looks interesting.
And please don't listen to the "cultural minefield" detractors. European history and culture has been mangled and twisted countless times for fantasy settings with no ill effect and the same would happen to American history, namely nothing.
Although I think American settlers would most likely focus on northern Africa and Iberia as those are the closest to them and provide reasonable good settlement opportunity. It also depends on what they want from the "new" world. In history sugar and tobacco was the main export from America to Europe which made it worthwhile to colonize there. But what does Europe have that America is lacking. You have mentioned horses already, but what else?
Also don't forget that like when the Europeans arrives in America, the Americans should not be a united front, but there should be several nations with different goals.
What exactly do you intend with the date of 1200BC? I assume you want the Europeans to be as primitive as the Americans were when the settlers arrived so to basically mirror the situation. The problem with that is that most people do not know much about that time period. Imo its best to use a date which gives the players at least some reference. 1100BC might work as in that century you had the war for Troy and the Odyssey.
I am not sure how the nations in Europe would react to the Americans and if they would accept their technology and trade with them or fight against them. Although the image of an Egyptian charioteer with a imported musket instead of a bow looks interesting.
And please don't listen to the "cultural minefield" detractors. European history and culture has been mangled and twisted countless times for fantasy settings with no ill effect and the same would happen to American history, namely nothing.
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In a word: Yes. Because there is not one set of "American Indian gods".
Remember that the total population of the Americas, just pre-Columbus, is estimated to be as high as the population of Europe, or greater. Just as Europe was not a monoculture, the Native Americans were not all the same, and did not all have the same religion. While the religions of a couple of the well-known Central American cultures have some passing resemblance to that of ancient Egypt to the amateur eye, and you could draw some analogies there, the spirituality of most of the North American peoples was rather different.
This is what I'm talking about when I speak of what is necessary to do this well. If you don't want to come across as a culturally appropriating jerk, you have to educate yourself before writing such a thing. I know a gent who thought that reading wikipedia was enough for such work, but it really isn't. Go, and get yourself the equivalent of a degree in Native American Studies, and then maybe you can take on such a project with enough perspective to handle it well. Otherwise, you are at grave risk of oversimplifying another person's culture, and that is deeply insulting.
Thomas Bowman
First Post
2250 years later any culture could predominate and new religions could be established. I don't know why it would be insulting to consider the American Indians capable of technological development and modernization, the typical image of an American Indian was one of a warrior with face paint, buffalo hide clothing, moccasins, and a feathered head dress, but if you go far enough back in time, you could probably find Europeans similarly attired. Europeans went from a hunter gatherer culture to farming, to gunpowder and firearms. If Indians were allowed 2250 more years of development, I think there would be some changes from what we know. You might find American Indians Peasants, American Indian Nobles, American Indian Kings and Queens, and armies and navies with muskets and cannons, those seem plausible enough if given enough time to develop.
reelo
Hero
I disagree completely. In Western Europe you have the so-called "Atlantic Bronze Age" which sees trade from Scandinavia all the way down to Portugal, with finely-crafted items of bronze and precious metals, the Mediterranean is *teeming* with culture, from the Hittites, the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Elamites, the Arameans, the humble beginnings of Greek culture.....
TheCosmicKid
Hero
To be, for lack of a better term, "fair", the central premise of a gunpowder-armed trans-Atlantic expedition in 1250 BC is so alien-space-bat out there that it requires not so much appropriating a culture as substituting one that has taken an entirely different path going back deep, deep into prehistory. I mean, 1250 BC is itself prehistory for the Americas, and even a degree in Native American Studies is going to result in a rather blinkered perspective on the era's cultures just because there are hard limits on what archeology can tell us, but, like, a couple millennia deeper than that.
TheCosmicKid
Hero
Dragoner did say "Southwest Asia", which would cover most of the civilizations you named. But in a broader sense I agree with you: we have an exaggerated sense that people were doing interesting things in that part of the world only because that part of the world was where people were just beginning to write stuff down. People were doing interesting things all over the planet, of which we can get only a tiny tantalizing glimpse, and one heavily biased towards stoneworking pursuits - a step bath in the Indus Valley, a ring of trilithons in Britain, a collection of monumental heads in Mesoamerica.
Thomas Bowman
First Post
Gunpowder wouldn't give the Indians that much of an advantage, much of the success against the Indians had to do with organization of the white settlers plus the US Army, the opponents the Indian colonists would be facing would be organized. In our history, Indians did get their hands on guns, the Battle of the Little Big Horn which killed Custer and his men was due to the Indians being better armed with repeater rifles, while Custer's Soldiers had muzzle loaders. It seems safe to say that if the Indians bring gunpowder muskets to the Old World, some of the natives of the Old World will eventually gain access to them, just like the Indians did in our history, plus the Indians have three continents to conquer, they aren't going to do that all at once. It is more of an even match than in our own history, especially with organized opponents like the Egyptians for instance.
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