I am trying to put together some starting races for a new campaign. This will be my first 'novelised' campaign report so I will be putting a lot of time and effort into the campaign. Therefore I would prefer to start with power blocs that are as realistic as possible and avoid anything too contrived. The campaign will start as conventional in 2025, which gives 15 years of political change to work with. I have managed to sort out most of the world but there are a few standouts that don't really fit very well into one of the existing alliances so I am open to suggestion and advice. The 'races' I have so far are:
1) European Union: Existing EU countries plus Turkey, which is likely to be a member before 2025.
2) United States (plus Canada, Australia, New Zealand). The three other countries all have strong military and cultural ties to the US and the US seems their most likely partner. I am open to persuasion if any inhabitants of those countries on the list believe they would join up with someone else or perhaps go it alone.
3) People's Republic of China
4) Commonwealth of Independent States (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan). Ukraine might actually be a member of the EU by 2025 but I have left it with the CIS countries to give the CIS a little more economic power.
5) Japan
6) India (India plus nearby countries such as Sri Lanka and Nepal)
7) Union of South American Nations. This is a proto-EU body formed in May 2008 by all of the South American States. There is background on wiki at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_S ... an_Nations. I am assuming by 2025 it will be capable of mounting a joint economic/research effort. By then I am also assuming that Mexico and some central American countries would join. It's possible Mexico might team up with the US or go it alone but I thought this option was more likely.
8) ASEAN (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Phillipines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Brunei). ASEAN, or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, was formed in 1967 and is primarily an economic organization. I am working on the assumption that closer political ties will develop over the next 15 years and that with the race into space, the countries will be pushed closer together out of mutual self-interest. One point of interest is that the official language of ASEAN is English.
9) Arab League (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Kuwait, Algeria, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, UAE, Mauritania, Somalia, Palestine, Djibouti, Comoros, Iraq?). The Arab League was formed in 1945 and has steadily grown in size since then. Although the Arab countries don't always see eye-to-eye, they do have a lot of historial and cultural ties. This organization is primarily political rather than economic so I am assuming some economic integeration by the start of the campaign.
10) African Union (minus those African countries already in the Arab League). I am not sure of whether this organization is capable of operating as a whole given the fairly wide cultural, political and economic differences spanning the whole African continent. However, the alternative is to break it down further into units such as the Southern African Development Community, which would have very minor economic power. Even as a whole, this is the weakest of the ten power blocs by some margin.
That leaves a number of countries which don't fit neatly into one of the above blocs. I am obviously not going to worry about states such as the Maldives or the Cape Verde Islands (apologies to anyone on the list from those very pleasant but not economically significant areas of the world) but there are several countries I would like to cover.
South Korea: Doesn't really fit neatly anywhere. Can't see them allying with Japan given the history or China. The US is a useful military ally but doesn't really share any cultural identity. I have read up a little on South Korean foreign relations (yes, I am a geek) and nothing springs to mind. They do have some economic agreement with ASEAN so I guess that might be a possibility.
Republic of China (Taiwan). A similar situation to South Korea.
Israel: The US is the obvious choice but it's also possible Israel could eventually join the EU at some point. A third possibility is to go it alone. It would be interesting to explore the possibility of a Israeli-settled planet that could attract colonization from the Jewish populations of other countries. Not sure how I would handle that in-game, although with this campaign I am considering the option of 'passive races'. These would be races with no economic impact in the game and no TN capability but they would provide a pool of additional colonists for other governments.
Iran: The Islamic Republic of Iran doen't really have any significant allies and is not a member of any major economic or political power blocs. It has some shared earthly interests with the Arab League with regard to Israel but once the human race expands into space, that may cease to be a factor. Despite it's limited economic power in relation to the major power blocs, I am inclined to believe Iran would try to go it alone.
Pakistan: Pakistan does have ties with China and some links to the countries within the Arab league but I am not sure they are strong enough for Pakistan to join with them. Possibly another go it alone country, or perhaps if Islamic groups gained the upper hand within the country it would find common ground with its neighbour Iran.
North Korea. While a threat to regional stability, North Korea has minimal economic power so I will probably include it with China. I don't think it warrants inclusion as a separate power.
Any comments and/or suggestions regarding the above are very welcome.
Steve