Board Thread:Timeline Discussions/@comment-7257730-20130401130901/@comment-32656-20130406110311

And a "different path" still leads to the same net result.

The Italians barely traded in Constantinople long before it fell. The fall of that city is greatly exaggerated in this regard - the Italians had problems and looked for new developments long before.

You also exaggerate the Hundred Year's war - it was neither a hundred years or a single war. And even when there was fighting, it was by no means constant. Heck, in many regards England benefited from the fighting. That all ignores that they will end eventually, of course.

The HRE had neither the economic power or shipping needed to even consider such a thing.

The Kalmar would care to some degree about exploration - not for the same reasons as the Iberian states, but care they would. They did care, in fact, otl.

No profit for the Haseatic League.

Dutch too busy fighting each other.

...I swear, it's like no one is reading my points. I am saying that the exploration would not be delayed from otl. It's not going to happen in the 1300s - there is no reasons for it to occur then. But your timeline? Impossible. There is absolutely no way it gets delayed 200 years.

The Iberian states don't go? Doesn't matter - the French and English would do it. They were both interested in the base idea Columbus had otl (though wanted no part of him, since the man could not calculate his way out of a paper bag) and would launch explorers anyways. Past that? Have a look at how the Portuguese discovered Brazil.

Even more so, however... trade was in most ways not the primary cause of the voyages. Religion and conquest were just as, if not more, important.