Without any knowledge of what’s outside of Europe and it’s periphery (North Africa, Middle East etc)



Where in Europe do you think the ideal place is to start and create a continent spanning empire?

>>14978166 (OP)

probably france

>>14978166 (OP)

Italy (central med position) Pannonia or northern Germany.

>>14978166 (OP)

France is good, good farmland and the general flat terrain leads to large central empires like the Harappans or Chinese.

>>14978166 (OP)

Italy. The Alps protect from continentals and prime middle man in the med

>>14978166 (OP)

Modern or Ancient tech? 



If Ancient, History has proven how absurdly good of a location Byzantium is.

>Ancient, History has proven how absurdly good of a location Byzantium is.

>no decent state until constantine founds constaninople and rome moves there

>byzantine empire is mediocre

>ottomans are dogshit

Byzantium was pretty wealthy, it provided ships to Thebes and was home to the scientist Philo of Byzantium and to famous painters

>>14978166 (OP)

anatolia, with Constantinople as the capital

good luck sieging me 



second choice is france with ideal french borders

-pyrenees

-alps

-rhine

>>14978166 (OP)

Latium. Alongside the Tiber river is a good spot for a capitol.

>>14978166 (OP)

It's the copout answer, but actually indeed Rome or nearby regions like Tuscany or Naples. I say this because present-day Italy is the best starting out region, but in antiquity the other regions had some drawbacks: the best other places would be around Bari and the calf of the boot, but these regions had less agricultural productivity than Latium. The Po valley was half a swampland, so also not extremely productive.

The best other Italian place would be Syracuse, which of course did become a regional power, and could have easily become a major European power.

>>14978166 (OP)

UKRAINA

I would say somewhere that has



>near the sea

>mild climate and much arable land

>not too mountainous

>but with some natural boundaries to protect it early on 

>but not to boxed in so it easily expand further later



So my first choice would be Southern France between the seas.

Then maybe the Lowe Danube region in Romania and Bulgaria

Just looking at the map, I'd say Spain.



>Shielded from the rest of Europe by a mountain range

>Easy access to Africa via Gibraltar

>Controlling the straight of Gibraltar means control over anything leaving or entering the Mediterranean. 



It seems that you could in theory sweep out from Spain into Europe and northern Africa with relative ease while holding a strong, strategic position of your own.

>>14978166 (OP)

Once you reach medieval levels of technology, the Frankish core of France, the Low Countries, and Germany makes the best base of any continental empire.



You're centrally located, letting you open fronts to Iberia, Italy, Britain, Scandinavia, and the Eastern European plain.



You also have a massive population. All those large cities and abundant farmland will let you raise larger armies and pay them with a larger tax base. At one point, France alone had close to half of Europe's population.



If only the Carolingians didn't have completely retarded inheritance laws that split the realm every generation.

>>14978166 (OP)

I’m a fan of river valleys and islands.

>>14978166 (OP)

The Pontic Steppe if you're a steppenigger, otherwise the Mediterranean.
