Quote Originally Posted by Sheogorath View Post
'Cause the Swedish king tended to take things personally :P


Now, speaking in terms of history, I believe the 'big five' pretty much stayed the same from about 1700 to the early 20th century.

In no particular order:

1. Austria
2. Russia
3. Prussia
4. France
5. The UK

Those five typically maintained a position as the strongest nations on the planet, hence they were known as the 'great powers'. While they tended to fluctuate as to two was the 'strongest', obviously, as I have said before, none of them ever really gained a supreme advantage, otherwise the others would have ceased to exist.
Even at the height of its power, controlling the worlds oceans, the UK probably could not have taken on one of the other great powers by itself with the intention of destroying that power and won.
Thus we get the 'balance of power' and similar things.

Now, if we go back another hundred years, we remove Prussia from the list because it doesn't exist and add the Ottoman Empire, who were, indeed, a major entity during that era. Of course, the mid-1600's were the start of their decline, when the Janissary corps started to gain power and corruption ran rampant, but they were still a presence even up until the 1900's.

There is also the matter of China who were, arguably, the strongest, richest, and most advanced nation on the planet up until about 1800. The trouble, of course, comes in the form of a lack of English records on the subject that aren't simply BS made up by the European powers to make themselves look good during the invasions and occupations of the late 1800's-early 1900's.
However, generally, the Qing were a state to rival any other until the series of crippling rebellions and wars, not to mention technological ignorance, pretty much screwed them and opened the door for European 'intervention'.
Why Russia? Assuming we are not counting the years from 1701 and beyond, Russia was backwards and, as far as I know, didnt win any significant battles at all until later on. At least not against the Swedish Empire. Russia was a huge pile of nothing in progress of being a huge pile of something. But it wasnt at the time?