Hello

[TacCovert4]

Just checking in, I'm new to the site, but interested in taking on the iroquois.

[The Rock Doctor]

Hello and welcome.

[TacCovert4]

Mostly just trying to figure out how to get involved.....Foxy brought me onboard.

[Jefgte]

Welcome aboard  ;)

Mostly just trying to figure out how to get involved...

Play a medium Country...
Perhaps "Iroquois Kingdom"

Jef  ;)

[TacCovert4]

The iroquois confederacy was what I had in mind after looking over the global situation.   So, what specifically do I need in order to take over, and which version of  springsharp are you all using?

[Desertfox]

SS3 is the one you need. I'd say start by throwing some unofficial designs together to start getting a feel for the rules, they are a bit more complex that WW, especially with the tech tree.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Welcome,
We're all here for advice, help and unwanted comments.  Snip is really busy but he's the Mod and gets final say, the rest of us are the players. I custodian the history.

[TacCovert4]

SS3b3 I'm far more used to than SS2, so that's good. 

I'll whip up some designs when I have the time, I'm at 19 cases this week, so it's a bit hectic. 

I guess I'll wait for Snip to approve or deny me taking on the Iroquois. 

Just to express my thoughts on how to bring them into 1911, the Iroquois Confederacy has been locked into a longstanding conflict and now 'cold war' with the Sioux to the West for some time, and had until recently had cordial relations with its southerly neighbor the Algonquin.  A recently concluded and more final peace between the Iroquois and the Sioux has caused the Algonquin and Cherokee nations to become far more 'alert' and 'assertive' over their territorial and maritime claims and forming a loose alliance against the Iroquois (covering southern VA and NC and SC and GA respectively).

Due to the other conflict, the Iroquois had been generally neglecting their maritime forces, maintaining a Coast Guard and Coastal Defense type force with small battleships, torpedo boats, and a number of protected cruisers backed by some armored cruisers.  But in general most of it is well out of date at this point.  The heavy influence of European powers to its North and pressures from the Algonquin and Cherokee to the South has caused a substantial resurgence in the Iroquois interest in its Maritime defenses.  The withdrawal of the Sioux from bordering tribal lands where the Iroquois was backing the locals to 'buffer' against the aggressively expansionist Sioux has meant that substantial funds can be diverted from the relatively modern Army to the Navy to form a more 'balanced' military.

[Kaiser Kirk]

In terms of the History of the Americas,
there are some substantial changes.
Most important is a Roman colony in the Cape Verde islands which developed better ocean going ships, spurring trade with West Africa, and then with the Americas.
This introduced some Roman metallurgical knowledge along with trade goods, and concepts like writing.

The Colony lost contact with Rome when Rome fell, and then collapsed itself.  However, it was around long enough to ensure West African diseases, and the various European ones, were transmitted to the Americas between 200-600 AD. 

The collapse of the indigenous population of the Americas then happened a thousand years before it did historically - and in a period with no European conquerors.

The slow recovery of the population numbers, combined with the imported technology, meant  the next major contact found a very different Americas.
The Norse were the first to re-establish the trade routes, and the Iroquois have probably dealt with them on a trade basis for centuries - up to you two.

Still Pending Snip's Final Okey Dokey: The Mali Empire's mythical exploration west probably happened here. So in the 1300s, they found the roman colonial records in their archive and so built the ships and explored west. This likely introduced a slave/sugar/plantation system to some of the Carribean, and resulted in a Muslim Aztecs...which should make them more palatable for diplomatic interaction than the real Aztecs.

The various fishermen etc that found the Grand Banks would have occurred, but the first publication of the route West again would be 1492, etc etc.

However, in 1492, the Americans would be similar to Medieval Europe in technology.  Plus they didn't die off en masse.  So conquest of large areas by small numbers...just would not happen.

European expansion started suddenly in 1910.  I presume there's some book or theory that became popular, arguing it was needed, and so the various powers went off to the races :)

Now, the Mid-level NPCs like the Iroquois are to be reckoned with,
The un-owned/ other areas of the map have smaller states. 
Probably safe to presume that the 'unowned' areas are equipped with trade rifles, but generally a couple generations behind on technology.
So an Iroquois- Sioux conflict would be your classic settled vs. nomads.

[TacCovert4]

I'm kind of presuming the Sioux as the most powerful of the plains nations, much more nomadic and very much a primarily cavalry based force, while the Iroquois on land are primarily infantry.  I'm seeing them sort of like Cossacks, though there are Apache, Comanche, and Crow nations west of me as well.  And some smaller tribes that neither of us had absorbed, and I wound up using as my buffer state between the Sioux and myself. 

As for weaponry, based on the general terrain of the Eastern seaboard before stupid amounts of settlement cut down all the trees, my nation has bolt action rifle and bayonet as the primary infantry arm, with my professional 'warrior' forces using carbines and tomahawks because they prefer closer combat.  The Sioux would have something along the lines of lever action rifles or so at this point.

[Kaiser Kirk]

As a general matter, the white areas of the map we don't care much about.
The Brown-Green of the Iroquois is in the American New England area.
The Sioux were a tribe that are known for being on the Plains, Wyoming/Montana/the Dakotas/S. Canada...
About 600 miles West of you.

You may want to consider the Sauk, Fox and Illonois confederation as occupying the white space between you.  Boy, Native American anthropology was a LONG time ago for me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Northeastern_Woodlands

However, if you really really really want the Plains Sioux to be raiders in the middle of America which raid well towards the coast, I suppose it could be, but Snip/Walter would have to chime in, as Walter's expanding that way, and dropping an invisible NPC into his path is fun..I mean um...

Now, as a midrank power, the Iroquois certainly have up to date weapons. No problems with the Tomahawk, I like it :)
As for what's been chatted/emailed about, the level of the "whitespace" areas is kinda up in the air, but the folks there, they aren't even a formal power. Their industrial base is small, and much of their gear is captured/traded or old.  Kinda like when the Brits were taking over India - India HAD firearms, they were just not as common and an older style and not as well employed. 

The Sioux -  so while they can have Winchester style lever actions, they will also have a fair number of sharps carbines, and a majority of minee-ball firing rifles. They - or the Fox/Saulk/Illinois can certainly be a pest, and maybe they were a power you shattered, but as of 1910, they are not a big big force.

[TacCovert4]

I was looking at the Fox/Saulk/Illinois as tribes that were being overrun by the Sioux, and in an effort to maintain a buffer zone for the Iroquois, they got involved for the purpose of maintaining a buffer state and some of the plains trade for them specifically. 

The reason for the sudden resurgence of interest in maritime things is because with the Sioux sufficiently dealt with to secure the Illini and such as independent but weak buffers, the Iroquois have had to take notice of the alliance between the Algonquin and the Cherokee nations, which gives them a substantial bit of the southeastern seaboard and leaves just the Delaware between us and starting to lean towards their alliance.  Individually none of them are a threat.  But combined, they're a problem, and their small outdated fleets combined could best mine at the moment.

In the land weapons department, I'm seeing the minor westerly tribes like the Illinois as having a mix of trapdoor rifles and a not-insignificant number of older bolt-actions provided from my reserve stocks through trade or military aid.  The major 'threat' power further out on the plains, like the Sioux, having a small arms industry that's capable of producing something along the lines of the Henry lever action in small quantities, and somewhat larger quantities of simple cartridge pistols (like break actions and such) and trapdoor rifles/conversions.  They haven't hit the smokeless powder revolution except in very small numbers of traded for guns, and they don't really have anything that could be called artillery unless you're getting back to 1840s tech and then only in miniscule numbers as they're heavily focused on light cavalry.  The Cherokee and Algonquin would likely have something along the lines of the Lebel as their top-line rifle, with some substantial numbers of smokeless-conversion rifles of varying older types.

The Iroquois have an 8 shot straight pull rifle and carbine in 6mm caliber (think 6mm Lee-Navy), with a number of larger bore single shot bolt guns still in service and intentions to standardize on 6mm 'eventually'.  The rifle is known to have less than ideal 'stopping power', but the light recoil, flat shooting, and ability of the individual soldier to carry 50% more ammunition on their person in the 4rd stripper clips is considered to be more than a counterbalance since the road/railroad network is rather poor in the frontiers of the Iroquois Confederacy and the terrain is generally heavily wooded and difficult to move wagons through.  Pistols haven't changed in a couple of decades though, a .44 caliber cartridge revolver recently converted from blackpowder.  Generally the primary land arm is the infantry, with artillery being light in both numbers and the guns themselves and machine gun batteries being considered as the regimental artillery.  A semi-'elite' force of professionals, sort of a 'warrior society' type of soldier, form a cadre and about a quarter of the typical peacetime force. 

[TacCovert4]

Working on building a national personality.  The 5 Nations were historically the most 'modern' of the tribal polities in the Americas, and I could forsee that Confederacy continuing on in the absence of more 'imperialistic' nations overrunning them.  But I'm seeing heavy industry being a bit of a slow starter, so I would be building ships that have smaller guns for instance than their counterparts, as my foundries work to build bigger and bigger guns and in the meantime work to build better smaller guns.

[TacCovert4]

I'll work up some relevant ships that would apply as being Iroquois build torpedo boats and cruisers.  I figure that they've been outsourcing predread production for 2-3 predreads for their fleet, and are now going to make an attempt at an indigenous build dreadnought.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Understood, if you need the Sioux, then we find something plausible to make the story line consistent for all.
One limitation is that Snip's starting World Map IS the state of things in 1910.
Which means the Sioux were a power which tore through the old Northwest area before running into the Iroquois borders.
By 1910  their power is broken and their tribes reduced to disorganized 'white space'.
Exactly how can be up to you.

A logical set point is to borrow from history.  The post 1492 contact is still where most of the 'Colombian' exchange- for simplicity- will have occurred. So while there may have been some horses introduced to the forested North, here the same trend of them being introduced to the Latin American areas, escaping, and becoming the mounts of the plains Indians still occurs.
Cavalry became less useful with the widespread advent of quick reloading rifles and repeaters. The ability of the horse to swiftly deliver concentrated firepower on a point of decision is eroded if the riders can be shot at range :) Though I get a kick out of the successful 1942 Italian cavalry charge, and the Charge of the Light Horsemen, they were exceptions.

Anyhow, depending on what you need for your storyline, the Sioux could have risen and fallen in the 1700s-1800s, could have surged when revolvers gave concentrated short range firepower, easy to reload with swapping cylinders - or perhaps they adopted Spencer carbine types early from the Aztecs, crushed the Fox/Saulk and surged East.

That last would give you the story elements you seem to want, a big recent war, that distracted the Iroquois from the sea.  Now, the Sioux empire shattered, their tributary tribes cut loose, and your western border secure, you can turn back to the coastline...and these silly Europeans that have decided to claim parts of the shoreline.

As long as we wind up with white space per the map, and  a common understanding, so as folks move towards that area of the map we're all on the same page as to what's there,  there's lots of flexibility. Tell your story, enjoy :)

I mean, after all, I'm running an Empire that in real life died 1700 years ago, but here with changing 3 conquests (Muslim, Mongol, Timur) to partial conquests...Parthia has managed to scrap it's way into modern times.