What if the Columbian Exchange had gone differently?

Crops, animals and pathogens move between hemispheres, remaking diets and populations.

If it had gone differently: No potatoes or maize in the Old World; European populations stay smaller and hungrier.

The real history on Wikipedia ↗

Later turning points that leaned on the Columbian Exchange. Change it in the game and the ripples reach all of these.

1. 1600The potato takes hold in Europe. Without it, Northern Europe stays one bad grain harvest from famine; its population never surges.
2. 1740Europe's population boom. Without it, Without a surplus of hands and mouths, there is no cheap urban workforce waiting for the factories.