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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 2304675" data-attributes="member: 20741">One interesting point on gunpowder weapon development and the societies who develop them:Historically, the Chinese both invented gunpowder and weaponized it first.  This happened for some very good reasons, principally, China was the largest and richest nation on earth and had the wealth to allow experimentation and structured science to a greater degree than was comparable elsewhere at the time.The theory goes, however, that the same factors which lead China to discover it and even weaponize it first lead to their inability to be able to develop it significantly as compared to the nations of Europe.This is because weapons like gunpowder, cannon, musketry and the relatively high tech involved in heavy crossbows (the triggers develop on technology used in Swiss and Northern Italian clock making) take generations to develop and require a stable and dynamic group of artisans who do not have their technology seized and their capital appropriated by the state in a time of emergency to pay for a war.China as a monolithic and large state was able to do this regularly to its artisans.  While their artisans had a head start, they were vulnerable to state expropriation and gruesome taxation in times of need.The skilled artisans of Europe were not so vulnerable.  When the state attempted to do this (and they did - OFTEN) the cannon makers and weaponeers would relocate. From the north of Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands and Hungary - they would move state to state when the government of the day tried to seize their tools and weapons and skills.The result is that enough moved on with their capital to continue their work without getting economically wiped out as they would have in a monolithic state like China.If this theory is true (I believe it is, fwiw) then the true gunpowder states in your world would make sense to arise in a relatively compact and politically diverse small continental mass - and not within a large and vast empire.</blockquote>

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