The Second Great Survey
In 1370, English scientists confronted the Blessed William with a new technology, which they claimed would have far-reaching effects on English life.  Though the Blessed William got dozens of these sorts of petitions every week, he accepted an invitation to watch the experiment at work.  The scientists led him to a little iron box on wheels, which rested on a track.  Thick black smoke issued from a stack on the box, and it started making a loud noise, then began moving down the track, slowly picking up speed.  The first question from our glorious President was "Well, how many can we build?"  To which the reply was, as many as needed, so long as the tracks could be laid.  England even had a supply of the coal needed to use them.  Production began immediately, albeit somewhat slowly[1].
 
In 1395, a man named Magellan seemed about ready to make an epic voyage from Oxford, but then moved to Persia after suddenly realizing that it's very hard to make epic voyages on small lakes.  His disaffected crew turned to piracy, though they were never very successful[2].
 
Throughout the next century, England became the industrial wonder of the world.  Great factories appeared in the cities, making everything from weapons to sewing needles.  Railroads spanned the continent, cutting travel time from Exeter in the east to Brighton in the west to mere days.  Replaceable parts made rapid-fire weaponry possible, allowing for the upgrade of the English military[3][4].  By mid-century, democracy extended to all English after Women's Suffrage was granted in Bath[5].  By the end of the century, advanced medicine had been developed, curing many previously deadly diseases.
 
At the start of the 1500s, the Blessed William, recognizing that the Great Survey of 310 was over a thousand years out of date, ordered a revision.  Known as the Great Survey of 1500, it showed a greatly expanded England, one that was in fact the largest, most populous nation in the world, and also the richest, with the best life expectancy.  The Blessed William was well pleased.
 
The Great Survey of 1500: Northwest  |  Northeast  |  Southwest  |  South Central  |  Southeast
 
The Great Survey of 1500: Demographics
 
The sixteenth century built on the successes of the fifteenth.  The core cities of England finished their rail networks[6] and at the beginning of the century, there was hardly a city where the railroad did not reach.  Great hospitals were built in the larger cities, and the beginnings of a public health service took shape.  Large corporations arose, causing an explosion of wealth.  Reforms in the government led to a third center of government, at Bristol in the north.  New scientific methods caused the discovery of atomic particles as well as the much more useful methods of refining, which caused an oil boom near Cumae[7].
[1] - Non-industrious workers suck an awful lot, even under democracy.  As it is, I've got almost 80 workers kicking around.
[2] - Say hello to the very first privateer I've ever built.
[3] - Oh, and workers work twice as fast.  My 90 workers are now happy workers.
[4] - "Do you wish to upgrade your 57 rifleman to infantry for 570 gold?"  I love Leo's.
[5] - After a trillion turn Palace placeholder lasting from back in the day when Bath was building JS Bach's.  IE, 50 odd turns ago.
[6] - Because 90 democratic, replaceable partsed workers will get you very, very far after a while, 60 cities or no 60 cities, industrious civ trait or no industrious civ trait.
[7] - I own this gigantic equatorial desert wasteland, solely for the hopes of oil, and the Iroquois nab the one city with oil.  Go figure.

Miscalculations
By the beginning of the 1600s, the English military, bored and restless since the end of the Roman War, began agitating for a more aggressive role for England in the world.  This hawk faction, mostly young field officers, began plotting to draw England into a war.  The target they chose was the Iroquois Confederacy.  There are a number of reasons for that.  Though the entire world was annoyed (at best) with England, the Iroquois were small, weak, and rich.  There was no danger, according to intelligence reports[1], that English cavalry would run into modern infantry regiments, unlike what would happen in France.  Battle plans were drafted, and Army elements began secretly moving into Oxford for the jump off.

Operational Plan 96b[2]:

In the meantime, Persia and Rome declared war on Persia's neighbor India.  In response, the Blessed William ordered a general mobilization, which fell right into the plans of the hawks.  Delaying just long enough for the first cavalry units to be formed[3], and on November 3rd, 1620, the Iroquois town of Awegen fell, marking the start of the Iroquois War.  Kashong, Tyendenaga, Caughnawaga, and a small second wave target fell almost immediately, and the first wave was declared a success.  Unfortunately for the hawks, they had miscalculated: Hiawatha had a secret treaty with Japan, who declared war on England soon after word reached them of the fall of Awegen.  Cavalry units from the east were quickly redirected to the west, taking the Japanese city of Kitakyushu.  At the end of the first wave, the Iroquois had lost five cities, their rubber, silk, and iron, and their saltpeter and oil supplies were in danger of being lost.  The Japan front was decided to be of lesser importance, and would be dealt with after the Iroquois fell.  Meanwhile, with military supplies desperately needed at the front, the Blessed William, now in line with the hawks, ordered a number of cities to use the new internal combustion engine to create tank[4] units.  
 
The Iroquois counterattack was fierce, and after heavy fighting around Caughnawaga, the city fell to Iroquois cavalry units.  English forces at Awegen, overextended, were pushed back out of the city, but English cavalry at Kitakyushu defeated their Japanese attackers.  Both Iroquois cities were retaken the next year, and the Second Battle of Caughnawaga saw the debut of the new tank units, who decimated the opposition without a loss.  Other tanks advanced on the second wave target of Gewauga, which fell the next year, along with Oka.  Kitakyushu, meanwhile, was strongly besieged by Japanese forces.  On the homefront, antiwar protests rocked the cities, and the Blessed William began looking for an exit to the war, but nobody felt like talking.
[1] - I FINALLY got embassies with the rest of the world.  Took me bloody long enough.
[2] - Red: first wave; Blue: second wave; Green: third wave; Turquoise: fourth wave; Orange: fifth wave.  Two Iroquois colonies not shown to the west part of the second or third waves.
[3] - Coincidentally giving me more than 50% more cavalry units.
[4] - WWI style tanks.  The WWII unit is now armor, and industrious civs now get cheaper battleships, called battlecruisers as their trait-specific unit.  Of course, I'm thinking of ditching the battlecruiser, too.  Industrious is good enough as it is.

The Iroquois War
Over the winter of 1634-1635, things went from bad to worse.  Kitakyushu fell to Japanese cavalry, who then swept through the English underbelly into Blackpool, which fell after determined resistance.  The barbarous Japanese, not content to take the city, razed Blackpool.  The treacherous Roman dogs, sensing an English collapse, joined the war.  The Blessed William, in a rage, ordered a massive mobilization of the military.  Tanks rolled off the assembly lines, and were sent to the front near Lancaster and Scarborough while the Iroquois front held ground.  Exercising England's diplomatic options, the Blessed William sent diplomats to Napoleon of France, wondering if perhaps the French wouldn't like to help out a bit against the Japanese in return for a bit of coal.  It turned out that the French were quite receptive to the idea.  Efforts to purchase the concept of the volunteer army proved unsuccessful, however[1].
 
France took to the alliance wholeheartedly, drawing in Babylon and Persia, despite the latter's continuing war with India.  Meanwhile, in response to mounting losses on the home front, anti-war protests reached an all-time high throughout England.  The police, unable to deal with the rioting, barricaded themselves in the police stations, and the military was busy fighting off the Japanese and Iroquois threat.  Soon, England collapsed into complete and total anarchy.  Despite this, the military still functioned, taking Gandesataigon and Kente despite Iroquois infantry.  The reports of infantry so worried the Blessed William, however, that he ordered an assault on Awegen, the only Iroquois supply of rubber.  It soon fell, and English armored units advanced on Cattaraugus, but after fierce fighting were forced to halt[2].  On the other hand, English cavalry forces took Goigouen, ending the existence of the Iroquois enclave between England and the former Rome.  Similarly, Kahnawkwe on the French border fell after a short fight.  On the diplomatic front, French emissaries convinced Montezuma to sign an Aztec-French alliance, which caused Montezuma to declare war on Japan.  In an even more important coup, Napoleon convinced both Caesar and Hiawatha to declare war on Japan, although why either should need more enemies was of some confusion to English diplomats.  The Aztec alliance was of use, however, and a right of passage agreement was quickly signed.
 
In 1660, an Iroquois amphibious landing by cavalry happened near Lutetia, which caused a few snorts of laughter by the English tank crews of the 451st Tank Regiment who drove them back into the sea.  The commander of the 451st, a Colonel Edward, showed such proficiency at armored operations that he was reassigned to lead an entire tank army[3].

Edward and the 451st Outside Lutetia:

In 1665, after bloody house to house fighting against Iroquois infantry[4], the 23rd Cavalry Regiment[5] under General Athelstan took Oatka.  General Athelstan was then transferred to Awegen to form the Second Tank Army.  Second Tank Army made it's combat debut in the renewed assault against Cattaraugus, although other tank units took the city.
 
In 1675, England finally emerged from anarchy, as recalled military units quelled the rioting and the Blessed William took control of the National Socialist Republic of England.  That same year saw the success of Operation Scorpion[6], a cavalry attack through the Aztecs against Rome.  Caesar was caught trying to flee Brundisium in a woman's dress and executed.  With his death, Rome came to an end.  On the Iroquois front, Tewannondadon fell, and English forces drove towards Kanadseagea, the Iroquois capital.

The Fall of Brundisium:

1680 saw the fall of Tonawanda, as English forces forced the Iroquois back all around their capitol.  Scattered Iroquois partisans were dispersed by tank units, and the overall leader of the effort, Colonel Nelson[7] of the 333rd Tank Regiment, was promoted and sent to head the new intelligence service in Nottingham.
 
After a short battle, Kanadseagea fell to the First Tank Army in March 1385.  As English troops marched past the Oracle, Hiawatha fled to the coastal town of Hostayuntwa.  On the Japanese front, Japan was clearly collapsing from the combined assaults of Aztec and French armies.
 
By 1690, England had all but won the Iroquois War.  Allegheny, Chondate, and Hostayuntwa fell to English armored units, and Hiawatha was driven to his French colonies.  That same year, the London Armor School was founded to train up and coming young officers in the lessons learned during the war.  The best-selling book of the year was the memoirs of General Athelstan, who talked about the virtues of patriotism, duty, and bravery, and their role in the taking of Oatka.
 
The Treaty of London was signed late in 1690.  In it, Hiawatha ceded all his lands to England, save for the one city of Ganogeh.  Of importance to England, the colonies of Hochelaga and Kiohero were gained without a fight.  English armor were then free to wheel on Japan.
[1] - And how.  I offer wines, spices, and 2500 gold, and Gandhi tells me to go away.  Yikes.
[2] - The random number generator is hating me this game.  Can't get promotions to save my life, and I keep losing combat after combat.  It's really painful.
[3] - Took bloody long enough.  Remember what I was saying about the RNG?  Funny, too.  Just before attacking, I was thinking "I'm gonna laugh if I get a leader out of these guys..."
[4] - 7 hp elite tank vs 1 hp infantry.  Tank loses.
[5] - Found a bug in the rename, too.  If you hit the spacebar enough times, it'll corrupt the text box, and pull in bogus data from elsewhere.
[6] - Guess the source, win a point!
[7] - The RNG loves me, it loves me not.  It loves me, it loves me not...

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