What if the Suez Canal opens had gone differently?

A sea-level ditch cuts weeks off the Europe–Asia route and rewires world trade.

If it had gone differently: Asia stays a long way round the Cape; European empires in the east are looser and slower to supply.

The real history on Wikipedia ↗

Later turning points that leaned on the Suez Canal opens. Change it in the game and the ripples reach all of these.

1. 1868The Meiji Restoration. Without it, Japan stays closed and agrarian; the idea that a non-Western state can industrialise fast has no example.
2. 1870The first globalisation. Without it, The world economy stays a patchwork of regions; no belle-époque boom, and no 1914 shock when it unwinds.